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

Detail

1. Why land matters more to farming than to other sectors

• Farming depends only on land. Industry and services can grow on a small plot. A farm cannot grow without more land or better use of the same land.

• So having no land goes hand in hand with rural poverty. Landless families have nothing to farm.

• Land quality sets the yield. Fertile, irrigated, flat land gives more grain per hectare than dry, sloping or eroded land.

• Owning land has social and money value:
• It brings status in the village.
• It acts as security (collateral) for loans from banks.

• It is a fallback in hard times, such as a failed crop, illness or a wedding.

• Land is a State subject. It is Entry 18 of List II (State List) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. So State laws decide land use and the conversion of farmland to non-farm use [2].

2. Total cultivable land: what it includes

• Total cultivable land is all land that can be farmed. It is the sum of:
• 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.
• Current fallow: land left unsown for one year or less so that the soil can recover.
• Other fallow (old fallow): land left unsown for 1 to 5 years.

• Culturable wasteland: land that could be farmed but has lain unused for more than 5 years.

• It does not include forests, barren land, land under non-farm uses (towns, roads, factories), permanent pastures or land under tree crops and groves.

3. The numbers: Table 3.1 (1950-51 to 2019-20)

Item	1950-51	2019-20	Trend
Total cultivable land (% of reporting area)	59.5%	57.7%	Small fall
Net sown area (% of cultivable land)	70.0%	79.0%	Rise
Culturable wasteland (% of cultivable land)	13.4%	6.8%	About halved
Other fallow (% of cultivable land)	10.2%	6.4%	Fall

• What the table shows:
• Wasteland and old fallow have already been brought under the plough.
• At the same time, total cultivable land has shrunk. Towns, roads and industry have taken some of it.

• Result: there is very little room left to expand farming outwards. Future growth must come from the land already farmed.

• Losing farmland to other uses: the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 (Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act), in force from 1 January 2014, requires a Social Impact Assessment before land is taken. Its Section 10 restricts the acquisition of multi-crop irrigated land, except in rare cases where no other land is available [2].

4. Land-saving technologies: the answer to land shortage

• Land-saving technology means any method that gets more output from the same area. There are two kinds:

Type	How it works	Examples	Effect on jobs
1. Raising yield per hectare	More output from one crop on one hectare	High-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, fertilisers, irrigation	Moderate
2. Raising total output per hectare per year	Using the land more intensively, with more crops each year on the same field	Multiple cropping, short-duration varieties, irrigation for a second or third season	Raises demand for farm labour

• Why type 2 suits India:
• India has little land but many workers.
• Each extra crop season needs more ploughing, sowing, weeding and harvesting.

• So it creates rural jobs and cuts disguised unemployment (more people working on a farm than are really needed).

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

• HYV wheat and rice matured faster.
• Tube wells and canals gave water in the dry season.
• Together they let farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh grow a rabi crop (wheat) after a kharif crop (rice) on the same field.
• This raised both kinds of output: yield per crop and the number of crops per year.

5. Gross cropped area (GCA)

• Gross cropped area is the total area sown in a year. A field is counted once for each crop grown on it.

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

• Worked example:

• A 1-hectare field grows rice in kharif and wheat in rabi.

• NSA = 1 ha. GCA = 2 ha.

• Current figures:

• GCA rose from 198.28 million ha (2014-15) to 225.19 million ha (2024-25), according to Land Use Statistics 2024-25 [2].
• Total cropped area rose from 201.18 million ha (2018-19) to 219.16 million ha (2021-22) [3].
• Because NSA cannot grow much (Section 3), almost all of this rise came from sowing the same land more than once.

6. Cropping intensity

• Cropping intensity shows how many times, on average, the same land is cropped in a year.
• Cropping intensity = (GCA ÷ NSA) × 100

• 100% means one crop a year. 200% means two crops a year on every field. 300% means three crops a year.

• Why a high value is good for India:

• It makes full use of scarce land.
• It gives more work in villages and less rural unemployment.

• It gives more food from the same area.

• All-India trend:

• It rose from 142.2% in 2014-15 to 159.7% in 2024-25 [2]. This shows a clear move towards multiple cropping.
• (In older references: about 150-155%.)

• Dividing GCA by cropping intensity gives an NSA of about 141 million ha in 2024-25. Nearly 59.7% of the sown land therefore carried a second crop.

• Differences between regions:

Level	States / regions	Reason
Highest	Punjab (near 190%), Haryana, West Bengal	Assured irrigation (canals, tube wells), HYV seeds, rice-wheat or rice-rice-potato sequences
Lowest	Dry Rajasthan and Gujarat (Kachchh), rain-fed Deccan plateau, hill states	No water for a second season, poor soils, short growing season in the cold

• Key driver: irrigation. Without water after the monsoon, the rabi field stays fallow.

7. Multiple cropping and related practices

• Multiple cropping means raising two or more crops from the same field in one year. The crops may be grown one after another or together.
• Traditional purpose (Class 7, The Story of Indian Farming):
• It spreads risk. If one crop fails, another may survive.
• It ensures at least one harvest.

• It gives harvests at intervals, so food and income come in through the year.

• Ancient roots:

• At Kalibangan (Harappan site on the Ghaggar river, Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan), archaeologists found a ploughed field with furrows crossing at right angles.
• This shows that two crops were grown together in rows (intercropping) about 4,500 years ago.

Practice	Meaning	Example
Intercropping	Two or more crops grown together in set rows on one field	Cotton with pigeon pea (arhar); Kalibangan furrows
Mixed cropping	Two or more crops grown together on the same field without fixed rows (seeds often mixed before sowing)	Wheat with gram or mustard in rain-fed areas
Crop rotation	Different crops in different seasons or years on the same field, so the soil does not lose particular nutrients	Cereal followed by a legume (pulse) that adds nitrogen
Relay cropping	The next crop is sown before the current crop is harvested	Lentil or gram sown into a standing rice crop (utera/paira cropping, eastern India)

8. The hidden cost of intensive cropping

• In irrigated areas, multiple cropping has a price:
• Farmers now grow crop after crop, so fallow periods are shorter. The soil gets no rest.
• Rice-wheat has pushed out legumes (pulses). Legumes once added nitrogen to the soil naturally.

• Result: the soil loses its natural fertility. Farmers depend more on chemical fertilisers.

• So a high cropping intensity is good for food and jobs but must be balanced with crop rotation and legumes to keep the soil healthy.

Prelims Hooks

• Total cultivable land = net sown area + current fallow + other fallow + culturable wasteland. It does not include permanent pastures, barren land or land under tree crops.
• Total cultivable land fell from 59.5% (1950-51) to 57.7% (2019-20) of reporting area. Within it, NSA rose from 70.0% to 79.0%.
• Fallow periods: current fallow ≤ 1 year, other fallow 1-5 years, culturable wasteland > 5 years.
• Cropping intensity = GCA ÷ NSA × 100. One crop a year gives 100%, and two crops on all land give 200%.
• All-India cropping intensity: 142.2% (2014-15) → 159.7% (2024-25). GCA: 198.28 → 225.19 million ha over the same period [2].
• Highest cropping intensity: Punjab (about 190%). Lowest: arid and hill states.
• Trap: GCA counts a field once per crop. NSA counts it only once. So GCA ≥ NSA always.
• Kalibangan (Rajasthan, Ghaggar river): criss-cross furrows show intercropping in Harappan times.
• Relay cropping: the next crop is sown before the standing crop is harvested. Crop rotation: the crops change by season or year.
• Section 10 of the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 restricts the acquisition of multi-crop irrigated land [2].

Mains Points

• Land is limited, so growth must be vertical (GS-I/GS-III):
• Cultivable land is shrinking (59.5% → 57.7%), and culturable wasteland is almost used up (13.4% → 6.8%).
• So India must rely on land-saving technology: higher yields and higher cropping intensity.

• GCA rose by about 27 million ha in a decade (2014-15 to 2024-25) [2], almost all of it from double cropping.

• Cropping intensity, jobs and regional gaps:

• High intensity uses land fully and creates farm work, which suits labour-rich India.
• It depends on irrigation, so it 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], is the way to close this gap.

• The cost to sustainability:

• Continuous rice-wheat cropping has cut fallows and pushed out legumes.
• This harms soil fertility and groundwater.

• Answers should suggest crop rotation with pulses, crop diversification and soil health cards.

• Protecting farmland: land is a State subject (Entry 18, List II) [2]. Conversion of farmland needs State checks plus central safeguards: Social Impact Assessment and the Section 10 limit on taking multi-crop irrigated land under the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 [2].