Foodgrains, cropping pattern and crop combinations

Detail

Why agriculture matters

• Agriculture gives India three things:
• food for its people
• raw materials for industry (cotton for textile mills, sugarcane for sugar mills, jute for sacks)
• exports such as tea, coffee and spices

Foodgrains: what they are

• Foodgrains are cereals plus pulses, taken together.
• Cereals: grains of the grass family, such as rice, wheat and millets. They are the main source of starch.
• Pulses: seeds of the legume (pea and bean) family, such as gram, tur (arhar), moong, urad and lentil. They are the main plant source of protein. Their roots also fix nitrogen in the soil.

• The two groups are told apart by the structure of the grain.

• Foodgrains cover about two-thirds of India's total cropped area.

• They lead in both subsistence regions (where farmers grow food mainly for their own family) and commercial regions (where farmers grow crops mainly to sell).

• Cereals alone cover about 54% of the cropped area.

• World position: India once grew about 11% of the world's cereals and ranked third, after China and the USA (NCERT; dated figure).

Fine grains vs coarse grains

Feature	Fine grains	Coarse grains
Crops	Rice, wheat	Jowar, bajra, maize, ragi (plus barley and small millets)
Water need	High. Mostly irrigated or high-rainfall areas	Low. Mostly rain-fed drylands
Soils	Alluvial plains and deltas	Red, black, sandy and desert soils
Typical belts	Indo-Gangetic plains, coastal deltas	Rajasthan, Deccan plateau, Karnataka, Maharashtra
Policy support	Heavily procured at MSP and given out through the PDS (Public Distribution System, which sells subsidised grain through ration shops)	Less procurement until the recent push for millets

• Official naming today:
• Jowar, bajra, ragi and small millets are grouped as "Shree Anna / Nutri-Cereals".
• Shree Anna plus maize and barley together make up "Nutri/Coarse Cereals" [2].
• Exam trap: maize is a coarse cereal, but it is not a millet.

Foodgrain output today (Final Estimates, 2024-25)

• Total foodgrains: 357.73 million tonnes (mt) in 2024-25. This is a record. It was 332.30 mt in 2023-24 and 251.54 mt in 2015-16 [2]. (NCERT-era working figure: "about 330 mt or more".)

Crop group (2024-25)	Production (mt)	2023-24 (mt)
Rice	150.18	137.83
Wheat	117.95	113.29
Nutri/Coarse cereals	63.92	56.94
— of which maize	43.41	37.67
— of which Shree Anna (jowar 4.96, bajra 11.21, ragi 1.98, small millets 0.46)	18.59	17.57
— of which barley	1.92	1.70
Total cereals	332.05	308.05
Total pulses (gram 11.11, tur 3.62)	25.68	24.25
Total foodgrains	357.73	332.30

All figures in this table are from [2].

• What the numbers show:
• Rice and wheat together = about 268 mt. That is roughly three-quarters of all foodgrains (2024-25) [2]. This is why we say the system is "rice–wheat-centred".
• Cereals make up about 93% of foodgrain output. Pulses make up only about 7% (2024-25) [2].
• Season split, 2024-25 [2]:
  • Kharif (monsoon season, sown June–July): 169.46 mt
  • Rabi (winter season, sown October–November): 169.17 mt
  • Summer (zaid, the short crop season between rabi and kharif): 19.11 mt
• Summer output has been counted as a separate season only since 2022-23 [2].

International Year of Millets (2023)

• India proposed it. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) declared 2023 the International Year of Millets in March 2021. 72 countries supported the proposal [3].
• Millets are small-seeded grasses, also called "Nutri-cereals" or "Dryland cereals". The nine common millets are:
• jowar (sorghum)
• bajra (pearl millet)
• ragi (finger millet)
• kutki (little millet)
• kakun (foxtail millet)
• cheena (proso millet)
• sawa (barnyard millet)

• kodon (kodo millet) [3]

• They grow in areas with low to moderate rainfall (200–800 mm) and on poor soils. They can stand heat of up to about 50 °C [3].

• India's place in the world [3]:
• largest producer of millets
• fifth-largest exporter
• grows all nine common millets

• grew about 20% of world output and 80% of Asia's (FAO data, 2019)

• Mix within India (2021-22) [3]:

• bajra 60%
• jowar 27%
• ragi 11%

• small millets 2%

• Main millet states [3]: Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.

• Long-term decline:
• Before the Green Revolution (the 1960s push for high-yield wheat and rice seeds, irrigation and fertiliser), millets made up about 40% of all grains grown.
• That share fell to about 20% [3].
• The cause: support for rice and wheat. These crops got subsidised inputs, assured procurement and a place in the PDS [3].

Exercise: sort the grains (NCERT activity)

• Take a mixed handful of grains and sort them in two steps.
• Step 1, cereal or pulse? Rice, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize and ragi are cereals. Gram, tur, moong, urad and masoor are pulses.
• Step 2, for cereals only: fine or coarse? Rice and wheat are fine. Jowar, bajra, maize and ragi are coarse.

Cropping pattern

• Cropping pattern is the share of land under different crops at a given time.

• Example: "X% of the net sown area under rice, Y% under wheat, in 2024-25."

• It reflects India's physical variety (relief, climate, soil, water) and its cultural variety (food habits, traditions, markets).

• Rice is the staple in the humid east and south.
• Wheat is the staple in the drier north-west.
• Millets are the staple in the dry Deccan and Rajasthan.

Soil–crop links

Soil	Where found (examples)	Crops it suits
Alluvial	Indo-Gangetic plain, river deltas	Rice, wheat, sugarcane
Black (regur)	Deccan lava plateau: Maharashtra, western MP, Gujarat	Cotton, jowar, soybean
Red	Eastern and southern Peninsula: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, Chhattisgarh	Millets, pulses, groundnut
Laterite	Western Ghats, Kerala, Karnataka hills, Odisha, North-East	Cashew, tea, coffee
Desert (arid)	Western Rajasthan	Bajra
Mountain (forest)	Himalaya, Western and Eastern Ghats	Fruits, tea

• Why black soil suits cotton:
• It holds moisture for a long time.
• It cracks when dry, so air gets into the soil.
• It is rich in lime, iron and magnesia.
• Result: rain-fed cotton and jowar can grow well on it.

Crop combination regions (Weaver's method, 1954)

• Crop combination: the group of leading crops that together hold most of the farm land in an area, such as a district.

• Weaver's method: designed by J.C. Weaver (1954) for the US Midwest. It works in four steps: 1. Find shares. For each district, work out the % of cropped area under each crop. 2. Compare with ideal patterns. Check these shares against a set of ideal cases: one crop = 100%; two crops = 50% each; three crops = 33.3% each; and so on. 3. Find the closest match. For each case, measure how far the real shares are from the ideal (the variance, or the gap between real and ideal shares). 4. Name the region. The case with the smallest gap gives the district's crop combination.

• Indian examples:

Region	Leading combination	Why
East and south (West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala)	Rice-dominant, often a one-crop region	Heavy rain, delta alluvium
North-west (Punjab, Haryana, western UP)	Wheat–rice	Canal and tubewell irrigation, MSP procurement
Deccan (Maharashtra, north Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat)	Cotton–jowar–groundnut	Black and red soils, moderate and unreliable rain
Rajasthan	Bajra–pulses (moth, moong, gram)	Arid climate, sandy desert soil

How the cropping pattern has changed

• Rice moved into Punjab and Haryana (1970s):
• Green Revolution seeds arrived, along with canal and tubewell irrigation.
• The government assured MSP procurement of the crop.

• Rice spread into a region where it was not a traditional crop.

• Wheat pushed out gram:

• Irrigated high-yield wheat earned more than rain-fed gram on the same rabi land in the north-west.

• Gram moved south and centre, to MP, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

• Soybean spread across Malwa (1970s–80s):

• Soybean filled the kharif fields on the black soil of the Malwa plateau in MP.

• India's soybean output reached 15.27 mt in 2024-25 [2].

• Maize is rising in Bihar, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh:

• Demand comes from poultry feed and ethanol (fuel alcohol made from grain and blended into petrol).

• India's maize output grew from 22.57 mt (2015-16) to 43.41 mt (2024-25). That is almost double [2].

• Horticulture has outgrown foodgrains: since 2012-13, India's fruit and vegetable output has been larger than its foodgrain output.

Food security as a geography problem

• Surplus north-west:
• Punjab, Haryana and western UP grow much more grain than they eat.

• Reason: irrigation and assured procurement.

• Deficit east and north-east:

• Bihar, Jharkhand, parts of Odisha and the north-eastern states have high population and low yields.

• Hilly terrain in the North-East adds to the shortage.

• Grain moves by rail:

• Grain is bought at MSP in the surplus states, mostly rice and wheat.
• Special food trains carry it across the country.

• Ration shops in deficit states hand it out through the PDS.

• A rice–wheat procurement map: procurement is heavily focused on the north-west. Nutri-cereals and pulses get much less procurement support. This keeps farmers in the north-west locked into the rice–wheat cycle.

Prelims Hooks

• Foodgrains = cereals + pulses. They cover about two-thirds of cropped area. Cereals alone cover about 54%.
• Fine grains: rice and wheat. Coarse grains: jowar, bajra, maize, ragi. Maize is a coarse cereal but not a millet. It is left out of "Shree Anna" [2].
• Foodgrain output in 2024-25 (Final Estimates): 357.73 mt, a record. Rice 150.18 mt is larger than wheat 117.95 mt, and pulses were 25.68 mt [2].
• Bajra is the largest millet in India, at about 60% of millet output (2021-22) [3].
• The UNGA declared 2023 the International Year of Millets in March 2021. India proposed it and 72 countries supported it [3].
• India is the largest producer and fifth-largest exporter of millets. It grows about 20% of world and 80% of Asian millet output [3].
• Soil–crop pairs:
• black soil → cotton, jowar, soybean
• red soil → millets, pulses, groundnut
• laterite → cashew, tea, coffee

• desert soil → bajra

• The crop combination method was given by J.C. Weaver (1954). It picks the combination with the least gap (variance) from an ideal pattern.

• Soybean spread on the Malwa plateau in MP during the 1970s–80s. Horticulture output has been larger than foodgrain output since 2012-13.

Mains Points

• Distribution pattern (GS-I): India's cropping pattern follows its physical geography.
• Rice belt: humid alluvial east and south.
• Wheat–rice belt: irrigated north-west.
• Cotton–jowar–groundnut belt: black and red soils of the Deccan.
• Bajra–pulses belt: arid Rajasthan.

• Weaver's crop combination regions show this pattern at district level.

• Policy-driven shift (GS-III): MSP, procurement and the Green Revolution pushed rice into Punjab–Haryana and wheat into land once under gram.

• Rice and wheat now make up about 75% of foodgrain output (2024-25) [2].
• Millets fell from about 40% to about 20% of grains grown [3].

• Effects: falling groundwater, less crop variety, and diets heavy in fine cereals.

• Food security geography (GS-III):

• The surplus north-west feeds the deficit east and north-east through rail-borne PDS movement.

• Fix: decentralised procurement and storage in eastern states, and adding millets and pulses to the PDS. This would make food supply both more local and more nutritious.

• Crop diversification response:

• IYM 2023 and the "Shree Anna" push promote climate-resilient millets for 200–800 mm rainfall drylands [3].
• Market-led crops such as maize (now 43.41 mt in 2024-25) [2] and soybean are spreading.
• Horticulture overtaking foodgrains shows a move toward higher-value crops.