Dryland farming

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

Meaning

Dryland farming is rainfed farming (farming that depends only on rain, with no planned irrigation) found mainly in areas that get less than 75 cm of rain a year. Farmers grow hardy, drought-resistant crops and try to save every drop of soil moisture.

It matters because rainfed land covers a large share of India's farmland and grows most of its pulses, millets and oilseeds. How well dryland farms do affects India's food security.

Explanation

How it works: cause → process → result

• Cause: too little rain
• Annual rainfall is under 75 cm, and the monsoon is often erratic. This means the rain may come late, stop early or fall unevenly.

• There is no planned irrigation from canals, wells or tubewells. The crop gets water only from rain.

• Process: farmers adapt in two ways

• They pick crops that can survive long dry spells.

• They hold rainwater in the field and in the soil for as long as possible.

• Result: low-risk, low-water farming

• Yields are modest, but the harvest is less likely to fail completely in a drought.

Crops grown

• Hardy, drought-resistant crops:
• Ragi and bajra (millets)
• Moong and gram (pulses)

• Guar (grown for fodder)

• Sugarcane is NOT a dryland crop. It needs a great deal of water and belongs to wetland farming.

Methods used

• Soil-moisture conservation keeps the water that is already in the soil:
• Mulching: covering the soil so it dries out more slowly.
• Bunding: building low earth walls around fields so rainwater does not run off.

• Deep ploughing: helps rainwater soak deeper into the soil.

• Rainwater harvesting means catching rain and storing it in ponds, tanks or the soil.

• Watershed development: a watershed is the whole area that drains into one stream.
• The whole area is treated as one unit.

• Check dams, contour bunds (earth walls built along the slope) and tree planting hold rainwater in the soil.

• Traditional water harvesting: for a very long time, rain-fed farmers have dealt with droughts and erratic monsoons by growing drought-resistant crops and building local structures such as khadin, kund and ahar.

Where it fits in India's farming classification

• Farming is classified by its main source of moisture, meaning the water that reaches the crop's roots.
• Irrigated farming is split by purpose into protective and productive.

• Rainfed farming (called barani in north-west India) is split by how much moisture the soil holds into dryland and wetland.

• Dryland is the "too little water" side of rainfed farming. Wetland is the "too much water" side.

Where it occurs

• India: the main dryland regions
• Western Rajasthan, in the Thar desert area
• Gujarat: Kachchh and Saurashtra
• Interior Maharashtra and Karnataka: the rain-shadow area east of the Western Ghats. A rain-shadow area gets little rain because the mountains block the moist winds.

• Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, especially Rayalaseema

• Size of rainfed farming in India

• Rainfed agriculture covers nearly 60% of net sown area and gives about 40% of total food production [2].
• In 2018-19, the net un-irrigated area was about 48.65% of net sown area, so about 51% was irrigated [3].

• The two figures use different measures. Both show that roughly half or more of India's farmland depends on rain.

• Who supports it: the National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA)

• It was set up by an order of 3 November 2006 and held its first Governing Board meeting on 12 February 2007 in New Delhi [4].
• It is an expert body that gives knowledge inputs for upgrading and managing dryland and rainfed agriculture [4].

• Its Governing Board is chaired by the Union Agriculture Minister and co-chaired by the Union Rural Development Minister. It also has an Executive Committee of technical experts [4].

• Traditional example: the phad system of community-run canals in Maharashtra shows how local people have long shared scarce water.

Don't confuse with

• Wetland farming: this is also rainfed, but the rainy-season rain is more than the crops need. It grows rice, jute and sugarcane, and its hazards are floods and soil erosion, not drought.
• Protective irrigation: this is irrigated farming. It brings in a small amount of canal or well water and spreads it over a wide area so crops do not die. Dryland farming uses no planned irrigation.
• Productive irrigation: this gives a lot of water per hectare to get the highest yield, as in Green Revolution Punjab. It is the opposite of dryland farming's low-water approach.
• Barani: this is the local word in north-west India for all rain-dependent land. Dryland farming is only one sub-type of rainfed farming.

Prelims Hooks

• Dryland farming is mainly found where annual rainfall is below 75 cm.
• Dryland crops: ragi, bajra, moong, gram, guar. Sugarcane is not one. It is a wetland crop, along with rice and jute.
• Dryland farming and wetland farming are both sub-types of rainfed farming. They are divided by soil moisture, not by the purpose of irrigation.
• Key practices: mulching, bunding, deep ploughing and rainwater harvesting.
• NRAA: set up by an order of 3 November 2006 and chaired by the Union Agriculture Minister [4].
• Rainfed agriculture covers nearly 60% of net sown area and gives about 40% of food production [2].

Mains Points

• Dryland farms are central to food and nutrition security (GS-III):
• Rainfed land covers nearly 60% of net sown area [2] and grows most of India's pulses, millets, oilseeds and cotton.
• So India's imports of pulses and edible oil depend on how well these farms do.

• Policy responses include the NRAA (2006) [4], watershed development and PMKSY's "Har Khet Ko Pani" [6].

• Drought-prone regions need region-specific strategies (GS-I/III):

• Western Rajasthan, Kachchh–Saurashtra, the rain-shadow Deccan interior and Rayalaseema face too little water and erratic monsoons.
• Their needs are moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting and drought-hardy millets and pulses, not water-hungry crops like sugarcane.

• Micro-irrigation saves water. Under PMKSY's Per Drop More Crop, it covered 61.72 lakh hectares from 2016 to 2022 [5].

• Traditional water harvesting is a model for climate adaptation:

• Khadin, kund, ahar and phad show low-cost water harvesting run by local communities.
• Reviving them through Repair, Renovation and Restoration (RRR) of water bodies under Har Khet Ko Pani [6] can make dryland farming more secure.

Related concepts

• Irrigated farming
• Protective irrigation
• Productive irrigation
• Rainfed farming
• Wetland farming

Read more

• Irrigated and rainfed farming: protective, productive, dryland and wetland