Land Resources and Agriculture

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Land and agriculture run through GS1 (resources, cropping patterns, crop distribution) and GS3 (agricultural growth, irrigation, land reforms, farm distress). Mains has asked why the Green Revolution bypassed the east, about the feminisation of agriculture, changing cropping patterns, agricultural revolutions since independence, shrinking holdings and watershed development; Prelims tests crop regions, seasons, land-use categories and world ranks. In the 2026-27 NCERT reprint this is Chapter 3, "Land Resources and Agriculture", with the same text and its land-use and world-share figures updated (to 2019-20 and 2018).

Contemporary hook: The Agriculture Ministry's final estimates for 2024-25 put foodgrain output at a record 357.73 million tonnes, with rice 150.18 Mt and wheat 117.94 Mt. On FAO's 2024 data India is now the world's largest producer of rice (paddy), ahead of mainland China, and of pulses, milk and millets; NCERT's 2018 figures still show it second in rice. Behind the output lies a land base that cannot grow: net sown area was 139.0 million hectares in 2023-24, about 45% of the reporting area, so production rises through intensity (a cropping intensity of 156.8%) and irrigation (59.3% of net sown area), not area.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

Land is fixed; the demands on it are not. NCERT's argument begins with three changes an economy undergoes: it grows (more pressure on land, marginal land brought into use); its composition shifts towards industry and services (land moves from farms to buildings, sharply around cities); and yet the pressure on farmland does not fall, because the share of people living from agriculture declines far more slowly than agriculture's share of GDP, and the number of mouths keeps rising. Every land-use change in the chapter, more land under non-agricultural uses, less wasteland, a near-constant net sown area, follows from these three forces acting on a fixed area.

So India must raise output per hectare, not hectares. The scope for bringing more land under the plough is limited, so NCERT calls for land-saving technologies: those that raise the yield of a crop per hectare, and those that raise total output from all crops in a year by cropping more intensively. The second kind also creates work, which is why NCERT calls high cropping intensity desirable for a land-scarce, labour-abundant country. Irrigation is what makes both possible, which is why the Green Revolution began in irrigated areas, why it spread unevenly, and why NCERT's first "problem of Indian agriculture" is dependence on an erratic monsoon.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

Land Use in India, 2023-24 (nine-fold classification)

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24 (provisional), Table I. Percentages are of the reporting area (306.96 Mha), not the geographical area (328.7 Mha), as NCERT explains.

Composition of Total Cultivable Land (NCERT Table 3.1, 2026-27)

Cropping Seasons (NCERT Table 3.2)

India's World Rank in Major Crops: NCERT and FAO 2024

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

Land-Use Categories

Land-use records are kept by the land revenue department, and their categories add up to the reporting area, which differs from the geographical area measured by the Survey of India: the first changes with the revenue records, the second is fixed. NCERT's nine categories:

1. Forests: the area classified as forest, demarcated by the government for forest growth, not the actual forest cover. So this category can grow without any increase in trees.
2. Barren and wastelands: barren hills, deserts, ravines, normally not cultivable with available technology.
3. Land put to non-agricultural uses: settlements, roads, canals, industries, shops; it grows as secondary and tertiary activity grows.
4. Permanent pastures and grazing lands: mostly owned by the village panchayat or the government; panchayat land is a common property resource.
5. Miscellaneous tree crops and groves (not in net sown area): orchards and fruit trees, mostly private.
6. Culturable wasteland: land left fallow for more than five years; it can be reclaimed.
7. Current fallow: left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less, to rest the land.
8. Fallow other than current fallow: uncultivated for more than a year but less than five (after five years it becomes culturable wasteland).
9. Net area sown: the physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested.

Land-Use Change, 1950-51 to 2019-20

Comparing 1950-51 with 2019-20 (shares of reporting area), NCERT finds five categories increased: forest, non-agricultural uses, permanent pasture and grazing land, current fallow and net area sown; and four declined: barren and wasteland, culturable wasteland, tree crops and groves, and fallow other than current fallow. Its explanations:

• Non-agricultural uses grew fastest, with industry, services, infrastructure and the expansion of rural and urban settlements, at the expense of wastelands and farmland.
• Forest grew because more area was demarcated as forest, not because forest cover grew.
• Current fallow fluctuates with rainfall and cropping cycles, so two points cannot explain it.
• Net area sown grew recently through the use of culturable wasteland, after a slow decline driven largely by non-agricultural use.
• Wastelands and culturable wastelands shrank under pressure from both farm and non-farm uses, and tree crops under pressure from agriculture.

The latest statistics continue the pattern: in 2023-24, net area sown was 138.99 Mha (45.28% of reporting area) and non-agricultural uses 28.55 Mha (9.30%).

Common Property Resources

Land is either private or a common property resource (CPR), owned by the state for the use of the community. CPRs provide fodder for livestock, fuel for households and minor forest products such as fruits, nuts, fibre and medicinal plants. They matter most for the landless, marginal farmers and other weaker sections, many of whom depend on livestock because they have little land, and for women, who do most of the fuel and fodder collection and spend long hours on degraded CPRs.

Agricultural Land and Cropping Intensity

Land matters more to agriculture than to any other activity: agriculture is purely land-based, so lack of access to land correlates directly with rural poverty; the quality of land decides productivity; and land ownership carries social value, serving as security for credit and against hazards, and conferring status.

Total cultivable land = net sown area + all fallow lands + culturable wasteland. NCERT's Table 3.1 shows it falling slightly as a share of reporting area (59.5% in 1950-51, 57.7% in 2019-20), with cultivable wasteland and old fallows shrinking and net sown area rising to 79% of cultivable land. The scope for more area is limited, hence land-saving technology and high cropping intensity:

Cropping intensity (%) = (Gross cropped area ÷ Net sown area) × 100

The Land Use Statistics show cropping intensity rising from 111.1% in 1950-51 to 140.1% in 2010-11 and 156.8% in 2023-24: on average, more than half of India's net sown area now carries a second crop.

Cropping Seasons

The north and interior have three seasons. Kharif largely coincides with the south-west monsoon and supports tropical crops: rice, cotton, jute, jowar, bajra and tur. Rabi begins with winter in October-November and ends in March-April; low temperatures suit temperate and subtropical crops such as wheat, gram and mustard. Zaid is a short summer season after the rabi harvest, with watermelons, cucumbers, vegetables and fodder on irrigated land. In the south the distinction does not hold: temperatures are high enough for tropical crops all year, and the same crop can be grown three times a year if soil moisture allows.

Types of Farming

By the main source of moisture, farming is irrigated or rainfed (barani). Irrigation can be protective, supplementing rainfall to protect crops from moisture deficiency over the largest possible area, or productive, supplying enough moisture for high productivity, with more water per hectare. Rainfed farming is dryland where annual rainfall is below 75 cm, growing hardy, drought-resistant crops (ragi, bajra, moong, gram, guar) with moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting; or wetland, where rainfall exceeds the crop's needs in the rainy season, bringing flood and erosion hazards and water-intensive crops (rice, jute, sugarcane) and freshwater aquaculture.

Foodgrains and the Major Crops

Foodgrains occupy about two-thirds of total cropped area and dominate every region, subsistence or commercial. They are cereals (fine: rice, wheat; coarse: jowar, bajra, maize, ragi) and pulses. Cereals cover about 54% of cropped area; NCERT says India produces about 11% of the world's cereals and ranks third after China and the USA, which FAO's 2024 data confirm (12.5%).

Rice is the staple of most Indians. Though a crop of the humid tropics, its varieties grow from sea level to about 2,000 m and from humid eastern India to the dry but irrigated plains of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and northern Rajasthan. The south and West Bengal grow two or three crops a year; West Bengal's three are aus, aman and boro. In the Himalaya and the north-west it is a kharif crop. About a quarter of cropped area is under rice. West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab lead in production; yields are high in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Kerala. Rice came to Punjab and Haryana only in the 1970s with the Green Revolution, where improved seed, fertilisers and pesticides and lower pest attack in a dry climate give high yields; yields are very low in rainfed Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. NCERT puts India second after China in 2018 (22.07% of world output); FAO's 2024 figures put India first, with 217.9 Mt of paddy (26.6%) against mainland China's 207.5 Mt.

Wheat is the second cereal, a temperate rabi crop, mostly irrigated, with about 85% of its area in the north and centre (Indo-Gangetic plain, Malwa plateau, Himalaya up to 2,700 m); rainfed in the Himalayan highlands and parts of Malwa. About 14% of cropped area; Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan lead; yields exceed 4,000 kg per hectare in Punjab and Haryana. NCERT: 12.8% of world output (2017); FAO 2024: second after China, 14.2%.

Coarse cereals cover about 16.5% of cropped area. Jowar (5.3%) is the food crop of semi-arid central and southern India; Maharashtra alone produces more than half. Bajra (5.2%) is a hardy crop of the hot, dry north-west and west, led by Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, with yields rising through drought-resistant varieties and irrigation. Maize (3.6%) is a food and fodder crop of semi-arid areas and inferior soils, grown almost everywhere except Punjab and the east and north-east; Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh lead. India is the world's largest producer of millets on FAO's 2024 data (40.9% of world output).

Pulses are rich in protein and fix nitrogen. India is "a leading producer" (FAO 2024: the largest, 26.2% of world output); they are grown in the drylands of the Deccan, the central plateaus and the north-west, on about 11% of cropped area, with low and fluctuating yields. Gram is a rabi crop of central, western and north-western India, displaced by wheat in Haryana, Punjab and northern Rajasthan after the Green Revolution (now about 2.8% of cropped area); Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan lead. Tur (arhar, red gram, pigeon pea) is the second pulse, grown on marginal rainfed land; Maharashtra produces about a third.

Oilseeds occupy about 14% of cropped area, in the drylands of Malwa, Marathwada, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana, Rayalaseema and the Karnataka plateau. Groundnut (18.8% of world output in 2018; FAO 2024: second after China) is a rainfed kharif crop, rabi too in the south, led by Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Rapeseed and mustard (rai, sarson, toria, taramira) are frost-sensitive rabi crops of the north-west and centre, about two-thirds irrigated, with Rajasthan producing about a third. Soyabean comes mostly from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (about 90% together); sunflower from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and adjoining Maharashtra.

Cotton is a kharif crop of semi-arid areas; India lost much cotton land to Pakistan at partition but has since expanded its area. It grows short-staple (Indian) cotton and long-staple (American) cotton called narma in the north-west; it needs clear skies at flowering. The three areas are Punjab-Haryana-northern Rajasthan, Gujarat-Maharashtra, and the plateaus of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana lead. India is second after China (NCERT; FAO 2024 seed cotton: 20.6% of world output).

Jute is a cash crop of West Bengal and adjoining areas; India lost large jute areas to East Pakistan at partition. West Bengal produces about three-fourths of India's jute; Bihar and Assam also grow it. NCERT says India produces "about three-fifth" of the world's jute; FAO's figures for jute (raw or retted) put Bangladesh first in every year from 2020 to 2024, with India second (2024: Bangladesh 2.09 Mt, India 1.41 Mt, 38% of world output). India's Jute Commissioner reports output in bales, on a different basis, so quote FAO with its year.

Sugarcane is a tropical crop, largely irrigated in India: in Uttar Pradesh in the Indo-Gangetic plain (about two-fifths of India's output), Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west, and the irrigated tracts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the south, where yields are high. India was second after Brazil in 2018 (19.7%), and still is on FAO 2024 data (23.4%), though cane occupies only 2.4% of cropped area.

Tea is a plantation crop native to the hills of northern China, grown on well-drained undulating land in humid and sub-humid areas. Plantations began in the 1840s in the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, later in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar, and on the lower slopes of the Nilgiri and Cardamom hills. Assam has about 53.2% of the area under tea and produces more than half; West Bengal and Tamil Nadu follow. India produced 21.22% of world tea in 2018 and was second among exporters after China (NCERT); FAO 2024: second producer after China (18.8%).

Coffee is a tropical plantation crop of three varieties (arabica, robusta, liberica); India grows mostly high-quality arabica, in the Western Ghats highlands of Karnataka (more than two-thirds of output), Kerala and Tamil Nadu. NCERT: 3.17% of world output, eighth in 2018 after Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, Honduras, Ethiopia and Peru; FAO 2024: seventh (3.2%).

Agricultural Development After Independence

Before independence Indian agriculture was largely subsistence and performed dismally, with severe droughts and famines; at partition about one-third of the irrigated land of undivided India went to Pakistan. The first strategy was to raise foodgrain output by switching from cash crops to food crops, intensifying cropping, and bringing cultivable and fallow land under the plough. Production stagnated in the late 1950s, so the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) and the Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP) were launched; two consecutive droughts in the mid-1960s forced food imports.

High-yielding varieties of wheat from Mexico and rice from the Philippines became available by the mid-1960s. India introduced a package technology, HYVs with chemical fertilisers, in the irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Assured irrigation was the precondition. The rapid rise in foodgrain output that followed became the Green Revolution; it also stimulated agro-inputs, agro-processing and small industry and made India self-reliant in foodgrains. But it was confined at first to irrigated areas, creating regional disparities until the 1970s, after which the technology spread east and to the centre. In the 1980s the Planning Commission turned to rainfed areas, began agro-climatic planning in 1988 for regionally balanced development, and emphasised diversification into dairying, poultry, horticulture, livestock and aquaculture. Liberalisation in the 1990s changed the course again.

NCERT records the results: rice and wheat output and yields rose impressively, as did sugarcane, oilseeds and cotton; irrigation was the base for HYVs, fertilisers, pesticides and machinery; fertiliser use rose 15 times since the mid-1960s, and pesticide use rose because HYVs are susceptible to pests. Its boxes name the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (productive, sustainable, climate-resilient farming through integrated systems and soil and moisture conservation), organic farming under the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, and the Farmers' Portal.

Problems of Indian Agriculture

NCERT stresses that most problems are region-specific, but some are common.

1. Dependence on an erratic monsoon. NCERT says irrigation covers "only about 33 per cent" of cultivated area; the Land Use Statistics put net irrigated area at 59.3% of net sown area in 2023-24 (NCERT's figure is long out of date). A weak south-west monsoon also cuts canal water. Rainfall in Rajasthan and other drought-prone areas is meagre and unreliable, and even high-rainfall areas fluctuate, so droughts and floods are "the twin menace"; NCERT cites flash floods in the drylands of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2017.
2. Low productivity. Yields of rice, wheat, cotton and oilseeds are much lower than in the USA, Russia and Japan; labour productivity is very low because of pressure on land; rainfed drylands growing coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds have the lowest yields.
3. Financial constraints and indebtedness. Modern inputs are expensive; marginal and small farmers borrow from institutions and moneylenders, and crop failures and low returns trap them in debt. NCERT links this to farmers' suicides.
4. Lack of land reforms. Of the three colonial revenue systems (Mahalwari, Ryotwari, Zamindari), Zamindari was the most exploitative. Land reforms after independence were not implemented effectively for lack of political will against landlord lobbies, leaving land unequally distributed.
5. Small farms and fragmentation. Holdings shrink with population pressure and are fragmented; some States have never consolidated holdings, and others need a second consolidation as land is divided again among heirs.
6. Lack of commercialisation. Many small and marginal farmers grow food for their own families; modernisation and commercialisation have come mainly to irrigated areas.
7. Vast underemployment. In unirrigated tracts seasonal unemployment lasts 4 to 8 months, and even in season work is not continuous.

Degradation of cultivable land. A faulty irrigation and development strategy has degraded land, most alarmingly in irrigated areas: alkalisation, salinisation and waterlogging have destroyed fertility; excessive pesticides accumulate in the soil; legumes have been displaced and fallows shortened by multiple cropping, ending natural nitrogen fixation. Rainfed humid and semi-arid areas suffer water and wind erosion, often induced by human activity.

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Frames that score. For crop-distribution questions, give the climatic requirement, the leading States from NCERT and the rank with its source and year. For "why the Green Revolution bypassed the east", use NCERT's chain: package technology needed assured irrigation and was introduced first in Punjab, Haryana, western UP, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat; disparities persisted until the 1970s. For land-use questions, keep the reporting area and the geographical area apart and use the latest Land Use Statistics with the year.

Exam Strategy

For Prelims: the nine land-use categories and their definitions (culturable wasteland over five years fallow; current fallow one year or less); the cropping intensity formula; the 75 cm line for dryland farming; aus, aman and boro; narma cotton; Maharashtra's share of jowar (over half) and tur (a third); Rajasthan's share of mustard (a third); Karnataka's share of coffee (over two-thirds); the origin of HYVs (Mexico, Philippines); agro-climatic planning (1988).

For Mains: start from NCERT's three forces on land, then the land-saving strategy, then the problems with current data (irrigation, cropping intensity, output, employment).

Avoid: quoting NCERT's "33% irrigated" or its 2018 world ranks as current; calling India the largest jute producer (FAO puts Bangladesh first); and confusing classified forest area with forest cover.

Practice Questions

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Questions 1 to 5 are NCERT's own exercise MCQs.

Prelims:

1. Which one of the following is NOT a land-use category?
   (a) Fallow land
   (b) Marginal land
   (c) Net area sown
   (d) Culturable wasteland

2. What is the main reason for the increase in the share of forest in the last forty years?
   (a) Extensive and efficient afforestation
   (b) Increase in community forest land
   (c) Increase in notified area allocated for forest growth
   (d) Better people's participation in managing forests

3. Which one of the following is the main form of degradation in irrigated areas?
   (a) Gully erosion
   (b) Wind erosion
   (c) Salinisation of soils
   (d) Siltation of land

4. Which one of the following crops is NOT cultivated under dryland farming?
   (a) Ragi
   (b) Jowar
   (c) Groundnut
   (d) Sugarcane

5. In which of the following groups of countries were HYVs of wheat and rice developed?
   (a) Japan and Australia
   (b) USA and Japan
   (c) Mexico and Philippines
   (d) Mexico and Singapore

6. In a year, a district has a net sown area of 200 thousand hectares, of which 90 thousand hectares are sown twice. Its cropping intensity is:
   (a) 90%
   (b) 110%
   (c) 145%
   (d) 190%

Answer note: Q6, gross cropped area = 200 + 90 = 290 thousand ha; 290 ÷ 200 × 100 = 145%.

Mains:

1. What are the important strategies for agricultural development followed in India since independence? Why did the Green Revolution spread unevenly? (250 words)
2. Why is increasing cropping intensity important for a country like India? Explain with data. (150 words)
3. What are the different types of environmental problems of land resources in India? (150 words)

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, India: People and Economy (Class XII), ch. 5 "Land Resources and Agriculture" (2021-22 print) and ch. 3, Tables 3.1-3.2 (Reprint 2026-27): 2021 book archive, Wayback copy; 2026-27 book archive.
• Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (Economics, Statistics and Evaluation Division), Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24, Tables I-IV: revised final, Wayback copy.
• Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Final Estimates of Production of Foodgrains, Oilseeds and Other Commercial Crops for 2024-25 (released through PIB, November 2025).
• Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics 2025: dahd.gov.in.
• FAO, FAOSTAT, Crops and livestock products (production, 2024): bulk download.
• PIB, PM-KISAN 23rd instalment, 20 June 2026; Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Periodic Labour Force Survey annual report 2025: PIB release.