Agriculture
Other food and non-food crops
Describe India's main cash and fibre crops.
Pulses. India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world. They are the main protein for vegetarians: tur (arhar), urad, moong, masur, peas, gram. They need little water. Being legumes, all of them except arhar put nitrogen from the air into the soil, so they are grown in rotation with other crops to keep the soil fertile. Main states: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka.
Sugarcane. Needs a hot, humid climate (21°C to 27°C) and 75 to 100 cm of rain, or irrigation. It needs hand labour from sowing to harvest. India is the second largest producer after Brazil. It gives sugar, gur (jaggery), khandsari and molasses. Uttar Pradesh is the leading state, followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka and others.
Oilseeds. They cover about 12 per cent of the cropped area: groundnut, mustard, coconut, til (sesamum), soyabean, castor, cotton seed, linseed, sunflower. Mostly used for cooking oil; some go into soap, cosmetics and ointments.
- Groundnut is kharif and makes up about half of the main oilseeds. In 2020 India was second after China in groundnut; Gujarat led in 2019-20.
- Mustard and linseed are rabi; til is kharif in the north and rabi in the south; castor is both.
Tea and coffee.
- Tea was brought in by the British; today most tea gardens are owned by Indians. It needs warm, moist, frost-free weather all year, frequent showers, and deep, fertile, well-drained soil rich in humus. It needs lots of cheap, skilled labour, and leaves are processed inside the garden to stay fresh. Main areas: Assam, the Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri hills (West Bengal), Tamil Nadu, Kerala.
- Coffee: India grows the Arabica variety, first brought from Yemen and first planted on the Baba Budan Hills. It is in demand worldwide. Grown in the Nilgiris of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Fruits and vegetables. In 2020 India was second after China. Mangoes (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal), oranges of Nagpur and Cherrapunjee, bananas (Kerala, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu), lichi and guava (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar), pineapples (Meghalaya), grapes, and apples, pears, apricots and walnuts of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
Non-food crops.
- Rubber: needs over 200 cm of rain and above 25°C. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar, Garo hills of Meghalaya.
- Cotton: India is believed to be its original home; second after China today. Grows on the black soil of the Deccan, needs heat, bright sunshine, 210 days without frost, and light rain (or irrigation). Kharif, takes 6 to 8 months. (Frost is ice that forms below freezing; it kills the plant.)
- Jute, the 'golden fibre': grows on flood plains where the soil is renewed every year. West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Meghalaya. Used for gunny bags, mats, ropes, carpets.
- Silk: from the cocoons of silkworms fed on mulberry leaves. Rearing them is sericulture.
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