Agriculture: Farming Types, Cropping Patterns, and Major Crops

Vocabulary flashcards covering agricultural types, farming practices, cropping seasons, regional shifting cultivation nomenclature, and major crops based on Indian geography lecture notes.

Primitive Subsistence Farming

An agricultural practice carried out on small patches of land using primitive tools like the hoe, dao, and digging sticks, along with family or community labour, depending on monsoon, natural soil fertility, and environmental suitability.

Slash and Burn Agriculture

A farming method in which farmers clear a patch of land, burn the vegetation, and cultivate food crops until soil fertility diminishes, after which they shift to clear a fresh patch of land to allow nature to replenish soil fertility naturally.

Jhumming

The regional name for slash and burn agriculture in the north-eastern states of India, such as Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland.

Pamlou

The regional name given to slash and burn primitive subsistence agriculture in the state of Manipur.

Dipa

The name used for slash and burn agriculture in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Milpa

The international term for slash and burn shifting agriculture used in Mexico and Central America.

Ladang

The international term for slash and burn shifting cultivation in Indonesia.

Intensive Subsistence Farming

A labour-intensive agricultural practice carried out in areas of high population pressure on land, where high doses of biochemical inputs and irrigation are applied to obtain higher production.

Commercial Farming

A farming system characterized by the use of higher doses of modern inputs, such as High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides, and pesticides, to secure higher productivity.

Plantation

A type of commercial farming where a single crop is cultivated over a large tract of land using capital-intensive inputs and migrant labourers, serving as an interface between agriculture and industry.

Rabi Crops

Crops sown in winter from October to December and harvested in summer from April to June, including wheat, barley, peas, gram, and mustard.

Western Temperate Cyclones

Weather systems that bring precipitation during the winter months, aiding the success and yield of rabi crops in northern and north-western India.

Kharif Crops

Crops cultivated with the onset of the monsoon in different parts of India and harvested in September-October, including paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut, and soyabean.

Aus, Aman, and Boro

The three varieties or crops of paddy grown within a single year in states like Assam, West Bengal, and Odisha.

Zaid Season

A short cropping season during the summer months between the rabi and kharif seasons, producing crops such as watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables, and fodder.

Rice

The staple kharif cereal crop of the majority of India's population, requiring temperatures above $25^\circ\text{C}$, high humidity, and annual rainfall above $100\,\text{cm}$, with India ranking as the second largest producer globally after China.

Wheat

The second most important cereal and main food crop in north and north-western India; a rabi crop requiring a cool growing season, bright sunshine during ripening, and $50\,\text{cm}\text{ to }75\,\text{cm}$ of evenly distributed annual rainfall.

Millets

Nutritionally rich coarse grains grown in India, specifically comprising jowar, bajra, and ragi.

Jowar

The third most important food crop with respect to area and production in India; a rain-fed crop grown mostly in moist areas that hardly requires irrigation.

Bajra

A millet crop that grows well on sandy soils and shallow black soil, mainly produced in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Haryana.

Ragi

A coarse grain of dry regions that thrives on red, black, sandy, loamy, and shallow black soils, notable for being very rich in iron, calcium, other micronutrients, and roughage.

Maize

A crop utilized both as food and fodder that grows well in old alluvial soil, requiring temperatures between $21^\circ\text{C}\text{ to }27^\circ\text{C}$; primarily grown as a kharif crop, though cultivated in the rabi season in Bihar.