Madhya Pradesh Agriculture and Crops: Soybean to Wheat

Madhya Pradesh is the second largest state of India by area and one of the most agricultural. Nearly three quarters of its people live in villages, and the state has won the central Krishi Karman award more than once for raising its foodgrain output. Its strength is soil rather than rain: the black cotton soil of the Malwa plateau and the Narmada valley holds moisture through a dry winter, which is exactly what a rabi crop needs. Examiners ask this chapter for rankings, for the region a crop belongs to and for the institutions and schemes attached to farming in the state.

Soils and the crop regions

Four soil belts decide what is grown where. The black regur soil covers Malwa, Nimar and the Narmada valley and carries soybean, wheat, gram and cotton. The red and yellow soil of Baghelkhand and the eastern districts suits paddy and kodo kutki millets. Alluvium in the Gwalior and Chambal north grows wheat, mustard and bajra. Skeletal and shallow soils on the Vindhya and Satpura slopes support coarse grains and forests.

Crop seasons and the leading crops

Kharif sowing follows the first monsoon rains in June and July and brings soybean, paddy, maize, jowar, arhar, urad, moong and cotton. Rabi sowing in October and November brings wheat, gram, lentil, pea, mustard and linseed, and these crops do best in the moisture retaining black soil. A short zaid season grows vegetables, melons and fodder where irrigation is assured.

Madhya Pradesh is the largest producer of soybean in the country, so much so that it is called the soya state, and Indore is the trading and processing capital of the crop. It is also the largest producer of gram and of pulses taken together, and it leads in garlic. It stands among the top states in wheat, and its Sharbati wheat from the Sehore, Narmadapuram and Vidisha belt is prized for its golden grain and sweet taste. It is a leading producer of the minor millets kodo and kutki, grown by tribal families in the eastern districts, and of coriander and other seed spices.

Opium, horticulture and the state's own products

Opium is grown in Madhya Pradesh only under a licence from the Central Bureau of Narcotics, and the licensed belt lies in Mandsaur, Neemuch and Ratlam. The Government Opium and Alkaloid Works at Neemuch processes the crop for medical use, which makes the district the usual answer to an opium question.

Horticulture has grown around particular towns. Chhindwara is the orange district, Burhanpur grows bananas, Khargone and the Nimar plain grow chilli, and the Malwa plateau supplies potato, onion and garlic to markets outside the state. Two geographical indication products of the state are asked often: the fine aromatic Chinnor rice of Balaghat and the Kadaknath black meat chicken of Jhabua, a tribal district of the west.

Water, institutions and schemes

Irrigation has improved sharply with the Narmada valley projects, among them Indira Sagar, Omkareshwar, Bargi, Tawa and Bansagar, but across the state tube wells and wells still water the largest share of the irrigated area. Teaching and research sit in three universities: Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya at Jabalpur, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya at Gwalior and Nanaji Deshmukh Veterinary Science University, also at Jabalpur. Among state schemes the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana is the one most asked: instead of buying the crop, the state pays the farmer the difference between a declared price and the price actually received in the mandi, a method known as price deficiency payment.