Rice

Also called: Paddy · Topic: Major Crops of India: Distribution and Conditions · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 4 "Agriculture"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Land Resources and Agriculture"

Meaning

Rice (also called paddy) is a kharif crop of the hot, wet tropics. It is the staple food (main daily food) of most Indians and covers about a quarter of India's cropped area. It matters because it is India's biggest foodgrain. It is the backbone of the PDS (Public Distribution System: ration shops that sell cheap grain). India is now the world's largest producer and exporter of rice.

Explanation

How big the crop is

• Kharif means a crop sown when the south-west monsoon begins (about June–July) and harvested in September–October.
• Record harvest: India grew 1,501.84 lakh tonnes (about 150 million tonnes) of rice in 2024-25. This was 123.59 lakh tonnes more than 2023-24 (1,378.25 lakh tonnes) [2].
• Share in foodgrains: total foodgrain output in 2024-25 was 3,577.32 lakh tonnes. Rice made up about 42% of it, more than any other grain. Wheat was 1,179.45 lakh tonnes [2].
• Ten-year rise: output grew from 1,044.08 lakh tonnes (2015-16) to 1,501.84 lakh tonnes (2024-25), a rise of about 44% [2].

Conditions of growth

Factor	What rice needs	Why
Temperature	Above 25°C	It is a crop of the humid tropics (hot, wet lands near the equator)
Humidity	High	Moist air stops the plant drying out
Rainfall	More than 100 cm a year	The paddy field must stay flooded while the plant grows
Irrigation	Needed where rain is under 100 cm	Canals and tubewells make up for low rain
Altitude	Sea level to about 2,000 m	It grows everywhere from coastal deltas to Himalayan valleys

• Irrigation means watering crops from canals, wells or tanks instead of waiting for rain.
• A tubewell is a deep, narrow well bored into the ground. A pump lifts groundwater (water stored in soil and rock underground) through it.
• Rice has many varieties. This is why one crop can grow in very different places, from humid eastern India to dry, irrigated Punjab.
• In the Himalayas and north-west India, rice is grown only as a kharif monsoon crop, because the winters there are too cold.

Three rice crops a year: aus, aman and boro

• In West Bengal (Class 10 adds Assam and Odisha), farmers can grow three rice crops in one year.

Crop	Season	How it is grown
Aus	Autumn crop	Sown before or with the early monsoon showers; harvested in autumn
Aman	Main winter crop	Grown in the monsoon and harvested in early winter; the largest of the three
Boro	Spring-summer crop	Grown in the dry season with irrigation only

• South India also grows two or three rice crops a year, because it stays warm all year.
• The data shows this too: of the 2024-25 harvest, 1,227.72 lakh tonnes (about 82%) was kharif rice. Rabi (winter-sown) rice was 161.29 lakh tonnes. Summer rice, which includes boro-type crops, was 112.84 lakh tonnes [2].

Yields: why some states do better

Yield means how much crop is harvested from one hectare of land.

Yield level	States	Main reason
High	Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Kerala	Almost all rice is irrigated in the first four
Very low	Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha	Rainfed farming: the crop gets only rainwater, so a poor monsoon means a poor harvest

Why Punjab's yield is high

• Farmers use better seeds (high-yielding varieties), fertilisers and pesticides.
• Canal and tubewell water is assured, so the crop does not depend on the monsoon.
• Punjab's dry climate brings fewer pests and diseases than humid eastern India.

Where it occurs

Natural belt: heavy rain and alluvial soil

• Northern and north-eastern plains: the Ganga plain (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal) and the Brahmaputra valley (Assam). The soil here is rich alluvium (fine soil laid down by rivers), rain is heavy and water is plentiful.
• Coasts: the Malabar coast (Kerala, Karnataka) and the Coromandel and Odisha coasts.
• Deltas: the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta (West Bengal) and the east-coast deltas of the Mahanadi (Odisha), Godavari and Krishna (Andhra Pradesh) and Kaveri (Tamil Nadu).
• A delta is the flat, fan-shaped land a river builds at its mouth.
• It is low, flat, wet and fertile, so it suits flooded paddy fields.

Irrigated belt: dry north-west India, since the 1970s

• Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan get much less than 100 cm of rain.
• During the Green Revolution, canals and tubewells were built to supply water.
• Result: these dry states became major rice growers, even though rice is not their natural crop.

Leading states

• NCERT lists West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab as the leading producers.
• Telangana has risen fast because its irrigation has grown. It is now among the top states (verify the current ranking against DES state-wise estimates).

Basmati region

• Basmati is a long-grain, sweet-smelling (aromatic) rice. Its grains get longer when cooked.
• It got a GI (Geographical Indication) in 2016. A GI is a legal tag that links a product to a region and the quality that region gives it. Only rice grown there can be sold under that name.
• The GI covers parts of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. These areas lie in the Indo-Gangetic plain and the Himalayan foothills.

World position

• NCERT: India was the second-largest producer after China, with 22.07% of world output (2018).
• Now: India became the world's largest rice producer in 2024-25, ahead of China. It is also the largest exporter, with about 40% of world rice trade (verify current).
• India supplies most of the world's basmati exports.

Don't confuse with

• Wheat: a rabi crop (sown in winter) of the cooler, drier north-west. Rice is a kharif crop that needs above 25°C and over 100 cm of rain. In 2024-25, rice (1,501.84 lakh tonnes) was far ahead of wheat (1,179.45 lakh tonnes) [2].
• Aman vs boro: aman is the main monsoon-grown crop, harvested in early winter. Boro is the dry-season spring-summer crop that is grown only with irrigation. Aus is the autumn crop.
• High rainfall vs high yield: Punjab and Haryana get low rain but have high yields because their rice is irrigated. Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh get good rain but have low yields because their rice is rainfed.
• Millets (Shree Anna): these need much less water than rice. India produced 185.92 lakh tonnes of Shree Anna/nutri-cereals in 2024-25, against 1,501.84 lakh tonnes of rice [2].

Prelims Hooks

• Rice needs a temperature above 25°C, high humidity and more than 100 cm of rain. Below 100 cm it needs irrigation. It grows from sea level to about 2,000 m.
• Aus = autumn crop; aman = main winter (monsoon) crop; boro = irrigated spring-summer crop. Region: West Bengal, Assam and Odisha.
• Trap: high-yield states are Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh (irrigated). Very low-yield states are Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha (rainfed).
• 2024-25: a record 1,501.84 lakh tonnes, about 42% of all foodgrains. About 82% of it was the kharif crop [2].
• NCERT says India was 2nd after China (22.07%, 2018). Now India is the largest producer (2024-25) and the largest exporter (about 40% of world trade).
• Basmati GI (2016) covers Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, western UP and J&K. Madhya Pradesh is NOT included. Pakistan contests India's basmati GI in the European Union.

Mains Points

• Two belts of distribution (GS-I):
• The natural belt is the humid eastern plains, coasts and deltas, which have heavy rain and alluvial soil.
• The irrigated belt is dry Punjab-Haryana, which has grown rice since the 1970s with canals and tubewells.

• This shows that technology and irrigation can push a crop beyond its climatic limits.

• Regional yield gap and sustainability (GS-III):

• Rainfed eastern and central India (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha) has low yields. The fixes are more irrigation, better seeds and drought-tolerant varieties.
• In the north-west, the rice-wheat system is lowering groundwater, causing stubble burning (air pollution) and degrading the soil.

• Policy responses: DSR (Direct Seeded Rice: seeds sown straight into the field, with no transplanting from a nursery) and SRI (System of Rice Intensification: fewer seedlings, wider spacing, fields kept moist rather than flooded) both use less water. Crop diversification and promoting millets (International Year of Millets, 2023) also help.

• Food security and trade (GS-III):

• The record 2024-25 harvest of 1,501.84 lakh tonnes and large stocks support the PDS [2].
• They also support fortified rice, which has added iron, folic acid and vitamin B12 to fight anaemia.
• The export curbs on non-basmati rice (2022-24) were meant to keep prices low at home and were later relaxed. They showed that India's choices move world prices, because India holds about 40% of world rice trade.
• The basmati GI dispute with Pakistan in the EU is a trade-policy issue.

Related concepts

• Aus, Aman and Boro
• Basmati rice

Read more

• Rice