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Land Resource and Agriculture NCERT Chapter Notes CBSE Class 12 Geography Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Geography NCERT Chapter Notes for Land Resource and Agriculture Humanitas
16 April 2025 by
Akash Kumar

Land Resource and Agriculture NCERT Chapter Notes CBSE Class 12 Geography Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Geography NCERT Chapter Notes for Land Resource and Agriculture


Land is a vital resource for agriculture, providing the foundation for crop cultivation and livestock rearing. Fertile soil, water availability, and climate conditions influence agricultural productivity. Sustainable land management practices help maintain soil health, prevent erosion, and enhance food security, ensuring long-term agricultural sustainability and environmental conservation.

land resource and agriculture

  • Different types of lands are suited to different resources. Human beings use land as a resource for production, as well as for residence and recreation. The land is put to various uses like Agriculture, Forests, grazing field, industry, settlement, road, recreational uses like Parks, etc.
  • Land use records are maintained by the land revenue department. The land use categories add up to the reporting area, which is somewhat different from the geographical area. 
  • The survey of India is responsible for measuring the geographical area of administrative units in India. 
  • The land use categories as maintained in the land revenue records are as follows:
  1. Forests:- It is important to note that area under actual forest cover is different from an area Classified as forest. The latter is the area which the government has identified and demarcated for forest growth. The land through the new records is consistent with the latter definition. 
  2. Land put to non-agriculture uses:- land under settlements (rural and urban), infrastructure (roads, canals, etc). Industries, shops, etc. Included in this category. 
  3. Barren and Wasteland:- The Land, which may be classified as the wasteland such as barren hilly, Desert lands, ravines, etc. Normally cannot be brought under cultivation with the available technology. 
  4. The area under permanent pastures and grazing lands:- most of this type of land is owned by the village panchayat or the government. only a small proportion of this land is privately owned.
  5. The area under miscellaneous tree crops and grooves (not included in the net sown area):- the land under orchards and fruit trees are included in this category. 
  6. Cultivable Wasteland:- Any land which is left to fallow uncultivated for more than five years is included in this category. 
  7. Current fallow:- This is the land which is left without cultivation for one or less than one agricultural year. 
  8. Fallow other than current fallow:- This is also a cultivable land which is left uncultivated for more than a year but less than five years. 
  9. Net area sown:- the physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested is known as net sown area.

Land use changes in India 

  • Land use in a region, to a large extent is influenced by the nature of economic activities carried out in that region. 
  • The size of the economy grows over time as a result of increasing population, change in income levels, available technology and associated factors. As a result, the pressure on land will increase with time. 
  • Secondly, the composition of economy would undergo a change over time. In other words, the secondary sector and tertiary sector usually grow much faster than the primary sector, specifically the agricultural sector. 
  • This type of change is common in developing countries like India. This process will result in a gradual shift of land from agricultural uses to non-agricultural uses. 
  • Thirdly, though the contribution of the agricultural activities reduces over time, the pressure on land for agricultural activities does not decline. 
  • India has undergone major changes within the economy over the past four or five decades. And this rate has influenced the land use changes in the Country. 
  • The rate of increase is highest in case of area under non-agricultural uses. This is due to the changing structure of Indian economy, which is increasingly depending on the contribution from industrial and service sector and the expansion of related infrastructure facilities.
  • The increase in the share under forest can be accounted for by increasing the demarcated area under forests rather than in actual increase in the forest cover of the country. 
  • The four categories data registered and decline are Barren and wasteland, cultivable wasteland, area under pastures and tree crops and the Net area sown. 

Common property resources 

  • Land, according to its ownership, can Broadly be classified under two broad heads private land and common property resources(CPRs). 
  • CPRs can be defined as a community’s natural resource, where every member has the right to access and usage with specific obligations, without anybody having property rights over them. 
  • CPRs provide fodder for the livestock and fuel for the households, along with the other minor forest products like fruits, nuts, fibre, medicinal plants, etc. 

Agricultural land uses in India

  • Agriculture is a purely land based activity and life secondary and trusted activities. Thus, the lack of access to land in directly correlated with the incidence of poverty and rural areas.
  • Quality of land has a direct bearing on the productivity of Agriculture, which is not true for other activities. 
  • In rural areas, besides from its value of the productive capital, land ownership has social value. And it serves as security for credit, natural hazards and life contingencies. It also adds to social status. 
  • An estimation of the total stock of agricultural land resources that is total cultivable land can be arrived at by adding up net sown area, all fellow lands and cultivable wasteland. 
  • There has been a greater decline in cultivated land, in spite of a corresponding decline of cultivable wasteland. 
  • There are three distinct crop seasons in the northern and interior Parts of the country, namely Kharif, Rabi and Zaid. 
  • The Kharif season largely coincides with Southwest Monsoon, under which the cultivation of tropical crops such as rice, cotton, jute, jowar Bajra and tur is possible.
  • The rabi season begins with the onset of winter in October-November, and ends in March- April. Important to Ravi crops are wheat, barley, peas, grams and mustard. These crops rely heavily on the availability of winter’s Rainfall. The major growing areas of rabi crops are Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. 
  • Zaid Is a short duration summer cropping season beginning after harvesting of rabi crops. Important zaid crops are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, etc. 
  • However, this type of distinct in the cropping season does not exist in the southern parts of the country. 
  • Here, The temperature is high enough to grow tropical crop during any period in the year, provided the soil moisture is available. 
  • On the basis of main source of merger for crops, the farming can be classified as a irrigated and rainfall farming. 
  • Rain-fed farming is further classified on the basis of adequacy of soil moisture during cropping season into dry land and wet land farming. 
  • In India, the dry land farming in largely confined to the regions having annual rainfall less than 75cm. 
  • In wetland farming, the rainfall is in excess of Soil moisture requirements of plants during the rainy season, such regions may face flood and soil erosion hazards. 
  • Food grains are dominant crops in all parts of country, whether they have subsistence or commercial agricultural economy. 
  • On the basis of structure of grain, the food grains are classified as pulses and cereals.

Cereals

A cereals occupy about 54% of the total cropped area in India. The Kante produces about 11% cereals of the world and ranks 3rd in production after China, USA.

RICE 

Rice is a staple food for the overwhelming majority of the population in India. There are about retails 3000 varieties of rice data grown in different parts of country. India is the second largest producer of rice just behind the China. India has a share of 22% of price production in the world, and ranks second after China in 2018. West Bengal, Punjab Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were five leading rice producing states in the country. 

WHEAT 

Wheat is the second most important cereal crop in the country after rice India produces about 12% of total wheat production in the Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are four leading world producing states. 

Jowar 

The course cereals together occupy about 16.50 percent of the total cropped area in the country. Maharashtra alone produces more than half of the total Jawar production in the country. Other leading producer states of Jawar are Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. 

Bajra 

Bajra is shown in hot and dry climatic conditions in northwestern and western parts of the country. Leading producers of Bajra are the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. 

Maize 

Maize is a food as well as fodder crop grown under semi arid climate conditions and over inferior soils leading producers of maize are the states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh.

Pulses 

Pulses are a very important ingredient of vegetation food, as these are rich sources of protein. Pulses occupy about 11% of total crop area in the country, being the rainfed crops of dry lands, the yields of pulses are low and fluctuate from year to year. 

Gram 

Gram is cultivated in subtropical areas. Just one or two light shower or irrigation are required to grow this crop successfully. Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are the main producer of this crop. 

Tur

Tur is the second important pulse crop in the country. Maharashtra alone contributes about one third of the total production of Tur. Other leading producer states are Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. 

Oilseeds 

The oil seeds are produced for extracting edible oils, dry lands of Malwa plateau, Marathwada, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana and Rayalaseema regions of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka Plateau are oil seed growing regions of India. These crop together up to buy about 14% of cropped area in the country. 

Groundnut

India produces about 17% of total ground production in the world. Gujarat Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are the leading producers.

Rapeseed and mustard 

Rapeseed and Mustard comprise several oilseeds as rai sarso thoria and Taramira. Rajasthan contributes about one third production, while other leading producers are Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh. Fibre Crops 

Cotton 

Cotton is a tropical crop in Kharif season in semi-arid areas of the country, leading areas of this crop are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. India ranks second in the world production of cotton after China. cotton occupies about 4.7% of total crop area in the country. 

Jute 

Jute is used for making cores, clothes, bags, sacks and decorative items. West Bengal accounts for about three fourths of the production in the country. Bihar and Assam are other jute growing areas.

Sugarcane 

Sugarcane is a crop of tropical area. Sugarcane growing area in western India is spread over Maharashtra and Gujarat. 

Tea 

Tea leaves have rich content of caffeine and tannin. It is an indigenous crop of hills in the northern area. Tea is cultivated on the lower slope of Nilgiri and Cardamom hills in the western ghats.

Coffee 

Coffee is a tropical plantation crop its seed are roasted, Ground and are used for preparing a beverage. coffee is cultivated in the highlands of Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Karnataka alone account for more than two thirds of total production of coffee in the country.

Agricultural development in India 

  • the importance of agricultural sector in India can be gaged from the fact that about 57% of its land is devoted to crop cultivation, whereas, in the world. The corresponding share is only about 12%. 
  • Despite various concerns, Indian agriculture has marched a long way since independence. 
  • After independence, the immediate goal of the government was. to increase food grain production
  • By switching over from cash crop to food crop . 
  • Intensification of cropping over already cultivated land and 
  • Increasing cultivated area by bringing new cultivable and fallow land under the plough.
  • New seed varieties of wheat (Mexico) and rice(Philippines) known as high yielding variety. HYVs were available for cultivation by mid 1960s. 
  • India took advantage of this and introduced package technology comprising HYVs, along with chemical fertilizers in irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana based on Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat. 
  • The strategy of Agricultural Development paid dividends instantly and increased the food grain production at a very fast rate. This spurt of agricultural growth came to be known as green revolution. 
  • Green Revolution was initially confined to irrigated areas only

Growth of Agricultural Output and Technology 

  • There has been a significant increase in agricultural output and improvement in technology during the last fifty years. 
  • Production and yield of many crops such as rice and wheat has increased at an impressive rate. Among the other crops, the production of sugarcane, oilseeds and cotton has also increased appreciably 
  • Expansion of irrigation has played a very crucial role in enhancing agricultural output in the country. 
  • Modern agricultural technology has diffused very fast in various areas of the country, consumption of chemical fertilizers has increased by 15 times since mid-60s.

Problem of Indian agriculture 

  • The nature of problems faced by Indian agriculture varies according to Agro-ecological and historical experiences of its different regions.
  • The poor performance of Southwest Monsoon. Also adversely affects the supply of canal water for irrigation. On the other hand, the rainfall in Rajasthan and other drought prone areas is too meagre and highly unreliable. 
  • Drought is a common phenomenon in low rainfall areas of which may also experience occasional floods. The flash floods in dry lands of Maharashtra Gujarat and Rajasthan in 2006 are example of this phenomenon, droughts and floods continue to be twin menace in Indian agriculture. 
  • Because of the very high pressure on the land, the labour productivity in India, agriculture is also very low in comparison to international level. The vast rainfed areas of the country, particularly dry land, which mostly grow coarse cereals, pulses and oil seeds, have very low yields. 
  • The inputs of modern agriculture are very expensive. This resource intensive approach has become unmanageable for marginal and small farmers, as they have very bigger or no saving to invest in agriculture 
  • Crop failures and low returns from agriculture have forced them to fall into the crap indebtness. 
  • Lack of implementation of land reforms has resulted in the continuation of Iniquitous distribution of cultivable land, which is detrimental to agriculture development. 
  • India, the land holdings are mostly fragmented. There are some states which consolidation of holding has not been carried out even once. The small size fragmented land holdings are uneconomic
  • A large number of farmers produce crops for self consumption. These farmers do not have enough land resources to produce more than their requirement 
  • There is massive underemployment in the agriculture sector in India, particularly in unirrigated tracts. In these areas, There is a seasonal unemployment ranging from 4 month to 8 month 
  • One of the serious problems that arise out of the faulty strategy of Education and agricultural development is degradation of land resources. This is serious because it may lead to depletion of soil fertility 
  • Excessive use of chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides have led to their concentration in toxic amounts in the soil profile 
  • Rain fed areas in humid and semi arid tropics also experience degradation of several types like soil erosion by water and wind often induced by human activities 
  • Leguminous crops have been displaced from the cropping pattern in the irrigated areas duration of land being fellow has substantially reduced owing to multiple cropping. This has dedicated the process of natural fertilisation.

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