Cropping intensity

Also called: CI · Topic: Land Use, Farming Systems and Cropping Seasons in India · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Land Resources and Agriculture"

Meaning

Cropping intensity is the number of times, on average, the same piece of farmland is cropped in one year. It is worked out as (gross cropped area ÷ net sown area) × 100. It matters because India has little spare land but many farm workers. When the same field grows more crops, India gets more food and more rural jobs without needing new land.

Explanation

How it is calculated

• Two measures of sown land are needed:
• Net sown area (NSA): land sown with crops and orchards in a year. A field is counted only once, even if it is sown twice.
• Gross cropped area (GCA): the total area sown in a year. A field is counted once for each crop grown on it.

• GCA = NSA + area sown more than once in the year.

• Formula: Cropping intensity = (GCA ÷ NSA) × 100.

• Worked example:
• A 1-hectare field grows rice in kharif (the monsoon season) and wheat in rabi (the winter season).
• NSA = 1 ha. GCA = 2 ha.

• Cropping intensity = (2 ÷ 1) × 100 = 200%.

• Reading the value:

• 100% = one crop a year.
• 200% = two crops a year on every field.
• 300% = three crops a year.
• Since GCA can never be smaller than NSA, the value is never below 100%.

How it rises: cause → process → result

• Cause: no room to spread farming outwards.
• Total cultivable land fell from 59.5% (1950-51) to 57.7% (2019-20) of the reporting area.
• Culturable wasteland (land that could be farmed but has lain unused for more than 5 years) fell from 13.4% to 6.8% of cultivable land.

• So future growth must come from land that is already farmed.

• Process: land-saving technology. This means any method that gets more output from the same area. It comes in two kinds:

• Higher yield from one crop: high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, fertilisers and irrigation.

• More crops each year on the same field: multiple cropping (two or more crops from one field in a year), short-duration varieties (crops that ripen fast) and irrigation for a second or third season. This second kind is what raises cropping intensity.

• Green Revolution link (from the mid-1960s):

• HYV wheat and rice ripened faster.
• Tube wells and canals supplied water in the dry season.

• Together they let farmers grow a rabi crop (wheat) after a kharif crop (rice) on the same field.

• Result: GCA grows while NSA hardly moves.

• GCA rose from 198.28 million ha (2014-15) to 225.19 million ha (2024-25) [2].
• Cropping intensity rose from 142.2% to 159.7% over the same period [2]. (Older books give about 150-155%.)
• Dividing GCA by cropping intensity gives an NSA of about 141 million ha in 2024-25. So nearly 59.7% of the sown land carried a second crop.

Conditions it needs

• Assured irrigation is the key driver. Without water after the monsoon, the field stays fallow (unsown) in rabi.
• Fast-ripening seeds, so that two crops fit into one year.
• Fertile soil and a long growing season. Cold hills and poor soils allow fewer crops.
• Plenty of farm labour. Each extra season needs more ploughing, sowing, weeding and harvesting.

Why a high value helps India, and what it costs

• Benefits:
• It makes full use of scarce land.
• It creates rural jobs and cuts disguised unemployment (more people working on a farm than are really needed).

• It gives more food from the same area.

• Hidden cost in irrigated areas:

• Fallow periods get shorter, so the soil gets no rest.
• Rice-wheat has pushed out legumes (pulses), which once added nitrogen to the soil naturally.
• The soil loses its natural fertility, and farmers depend more on chemical fertilisers.

Where it occurs

• All-India: 142.2% (2014-15) → 159.7% (2024-25) [2]. This shows a clear move towards multiple cropping.
• Highest cropping intensity:
• Punjab (near 190%), Haryana and West Bengal.
• Why: assured irrigation from canals and tube wells, HYV seeds, and crop sequences such as rice-wheat or rice-rice-potato.

• Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh are the Green Revolution belt where the rice-then-wheat pattern first spread.

• Lowest cropping intensity:

• Dry Rajasthan and Gujarat (Kachchh): no water for a second season.
• Rain-fed Deccan plateau: poor soils and dependence on the monsoon.

• Hill states: a short growing season because of the cold.

• Eastern India: relay cropping (utera/paira), where lentil or gram is sown into a standing rice crop, adds a second crop without irrigation.

• Ancient example: at Kalibangan (a Harappan site on the Ghaggar river, Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan), a ploughed field with furrows crossing at right angles shows that two crops were grown together about 4,500 years ago.

Don't confuse with

• Net sown area vs gross cropped area: NSA counts a field only once in a year. GCA counts it once for each crop. Cropping intensity is the ratio of the two, not either one alone.
• Crop yield (yield per hectare): yield is output from one crop on one hectare, raised by HYV seeds and fertilisers. Cropping intensity is about how many crops a field carries in a year, not how much each crop gives.
• Intercropping / mixed cropping: these grow two crops together at the same time on one field. Cropping intensity mainly rises when crops are grown one after another in different seasons, which counts the field again in GCA.
• Total cultivable land: this is NSA + current fallow + other fallow + culturable wasteland. It measures how much land could be farmed, not how often farmed land is used.

Prelims Hooks

• Cropping intensity = (GCA ÷ NSA) × 100. One crop a year = 100%. Two crops on all land = 200%.
• Trap: GCA counts a field once per crop, and NSA counts it only once. So GCA ≥ NSA always, and cropping intensity is never below 100%.
• All-India cropping intensity: 142.2% (2014-15) → 159.7% (2024-25). GCA: 198.28 → 225.19 million ha over the same period [2].
• Total cropped area rose from 201.18 million ha (2018-19) to 219.16 million ha (2021-22) [3].
• Highest: Punjab (about 190%), followed by Haryana and West Bengal. Lowest: arid Rajasthan, Kachchh, the rain-fed Deccan and hill states.
• Section 10 of the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 restricts the acquisition of multi-crop irrigated land, which is land with high cropping intensity [2].

Mains Points

• Growth must be vertical, not outward (GS-III):
• Cultivable land is shrinking (59.5% → 57.7%), and culturable wasteland is almost used up (13.4% → 6.8%).
• GCA rose by about 27 million ha in a decade (2014-15 to 2024-25), almost all of it from double cropping [2].

• So raising cropping intensity, along with yields, is India's main path to more farm output.

• Regional gaps come from irrigation (GS-I/GS-III):

• Intensity is high in the Punjab-Haryana plains and low in rain-fed Rajasthan, the Deccan and the hills.
• Expanding micro-irrigation, such as Per Drop More Crop under PM-RKVY [2], can supply water for a second season and close the gap.

• High intensity also creates farm work, which suits labour-rich India.

• Sustainability and protection:

• Continuous rice-wheat cropping cuts fallows, pushes out legumes and harms soil fertility and groundwater. Answers should suggest crop rotation with pulses, crop diversification and soil health cards.
• Land is a State subject (Entry 18, List II) [2]. Farmland with high cropping intensity also has central safeguards: a Social Impact Assessment and the Section 10 limit on taking multi-crop irrigated land under the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 [2].

Related concepts

• Total cultivable land
• Gross cropped area
• Multiple cropping

Read more

• Agricultural land use: cultivable land, gross cropped area and cropping intensity