Chapter 3 — Land Resources and Agriculture

The nine categories are: (1) Forests, (2) Barren and Wasteland, (3) Land under non-agricultural uses, (4) Permanent pastures and grazing lands, (5) Miscellaneous tree crops and groves, (6) Culturable wasteland (left fallow for more than five years), (7) Current fallow (left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less), (8) Fallow other than current fallow (uncultivated for more than one but less than five years), and (9) Net area sown.

Culturable wasteland is land left uncultivated for more than five years that can be reclaimed through reclamation practices. Current fallow is land left without cultivation for one or less than one agricultural year so it can reacquire lost fertility through natural processes.

CPRs are community natural resources—such as community forests, pasture lands, and village water bodies—owned by the state for community use, where every member has the right of access with specified obligations but no individual property rights over them. They are important for providing fodder, fuel, and minor forest products to landless and marginal farmers, and are particularly crucial for women who collect fodder and fuel from them.

Five categories increased: area under forests, area under non-agricultural uses (highest rate of increase), permanent pasture and grazing land, current fallow, and net area sown. Four categories declined: barren and wasteland, culturable wasteland, area under tree crops and groves, and fallow other than current fallow.

Cropping Intensity (CI) = (Gross Cropped Area / Net Sown Area) × 100. It is important because the scope for bringing additional land under net sown area in India is limited, so increasing land-use intensity—growing more crops per unit area per year—also increases demand for labour, helping reduce unemployment in a land-scarce but labour-abundant economy.

Kharif (June–September): rice, cotton, bajra, jowar, and tur in northern states; rice, maize, ragi, and groundnut in southern states. Rabi (October–March): wheat, gram, rapeseed and mustard in northern states. Zaid (April–June): watermelons, cucumbers, vegetables, and fodder crops on irrigated lands.

Dryland farming is practised in regions with annual rainfall less than 75 cm; drought-resistant crops such as ragi, bajra, moong, gram, and guar are grown with soil moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting. In wetland farming, rainfall exceeds soil moisture requirements during the rainy season; water-intensive crops such as rice, jute, and sugarcane are grown, but these areas may face flood and soil erosion hazards.

High yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat were developed in Mexico and HYVs of rice were developed in Philippines. India introduced these along with chemical fertilisers in irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat from the mid-1960s.

India contributes 22.07 per cent of world rice production (2018) and is ranked second after China. West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab are the leading rice-producing states. India produces about 12.8 per cent of total world wheat production (2017); Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan are leading wheat-producing states.

The main problems are: dependence on erratic monsoon (irrigation covers only about 33 per cent of cultivated area), low productivity compared to international levels, financial indebtedness of marginal and small farmers, lack of effective implementation of land reforms, small and fragmented landholdings that are uneconomic, lack of commercialisation among subsistence farmers, vast underemployment with seasonal unemployment of 4–8 months, and degradation of cultivable land through salinisation, waterlogging, excessive chemical use, and soil erosion.

India produces about three-fifths of world jute production, with West Bengal accounting for about three-fourths of India's production. India was the second largest sugarcane producer after Brazil in 2018, accounting for about 19.7 per cent of world production; Uttar Pradesh produces about two-fifths of India's sugarcane.

Yes — the full PDF of Class 12 Geography Part 2 Chapter 3 (Land Resources and Agriculture) is available free on this site with no login or sign-up required.