Which one of the following is not a feature of agriculture in India?
- A.Subsistence agriculture
- B.Pressure of population on agriculture
- C.Dependence upon Monsoon
- D.Predominance of cash crops
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is D, Predominance of cash crops. Indian farming is dominated by food crops, not cash crops.
Most of India’s cropped area is under food grains such as rice, wheat, millets and pulses, grown largely to feed the farm family and the country. Cash crops such as cotton, jute, sugarcane, tea and oilseeds are important but cover a much smaller share of the land. Small and fragmented holdings, heavy dependence on rainfall and a large workforce on the land are the classic features listed in textbooks.
A is wrong because a large part of Indian farming is subsistence agriculture, where the family consumes much of what it grows.
B is wrong because a very large share of the population depends on farming, which splits holdings into small plots.
C is wrong because much of the cropped area is rain-fed, so harvests rise and fall with the monsoon.
Exam tip: Indian agriculture = subsistence, food-crop dominated, monsoon-dependent, small holdings, heavy population pressure.
Practice Questions
View allIn shifting cultivation, the ash of the burnt vegetation serves mainly as
- A.A pesticide
- B.A manure that supplies nutrients to the soil
- C.A weedicide that kills the forest roots
- D.A means of levelling the slope
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In slash-and-burn farming the felled trees and undergrowth are dried and burnt on the spot, and the ash left behind is rich in potash and other mineral nutrients, which the cultivator depends on because no chemical fertiliser or farmyard manure is used.
Read the full explanation →Mediterranean agriculture is particularly famous for which activity?
- A.Viticulture
- B.Dairy farming
- C.Shifting cultivation
- D.Commercial grain farming
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The Mediterranean climate, with its hot dry summer and mild wet winter, suits the vine better than almost any other region, and the lands around the Mediterranean sea, together with California, central Chile, the Cape region of South Africa and parts of southern Australia, are the world's great wine-producing areas…
Read the full explanation →The 'kolkhoz' of the former Soviet Union was an example of
- A.Cooperative farming
- B.Collective farming
- C.Plantation agriculture
- D.Market gardening
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The kolkhoz was the collective farm of the former Soviet Union, in which land, implements, livestock and labour were pooled and the farm worked under state direction with production targets fixed by the plan; the state farm, worked wholly by wage earners, was called the sovkhoz.
Read the full explanation →Intensive subsistence agriculture, marked by very small holdings, heavy use of manure and a high yield per hectare, is characteristic of
- A.The prairies of North America
- B.The monsoon lands of Asia
- C.The steppes of Eurasia
- D.The pampas of South America
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Where population is dense and holdings have been divided by inheritance over generations, as in India, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, the farmer puts in abundant labour, manure and irrigation water on a tiny field and takes more than one crop a year.
Read the full explanation →Sericulture is the rearing of
- A.Honey bees
- B.Silkworms
- C.Fish
- D.Grapes
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Sericulture is the rearing of silkworms on mulberry or other host leaves for the production of raw silk, and it is an allied activity of farming that supports lakhs of rural households in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.
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