Agriculture and Manufacturing
Domain 7: Agriculture and Manufacturing in India
The exam tests cropping patterns, agricultural systems, industrial location and the difference between farm production and manufacturing value addition.
Core rules
- Agriculture includes subsistence, commercial, intensive, plantation and shifting cultivation. India's main cropping seasons are kharif, rabi and zaid.
- Kharif crops are sown with the monsoon and harvested in autumn; rabi crops are sown in winter and harvested in spring; zaid is a short summer season.
- The Green Revolution raised wheat and rice output through high-yielding seeds, irrigation, fertiliser and mechanisation, but mainly in well-watered regions.
- Manufacturing includes agro-based, mineral-based, chemical, engineering and consumer industries. Location depends on raw materials, power, transport, labour, market and capital.
- Weight-losing industries locate near raw materials; weight-gaining or market-oriented industries locate near consumers.
Worked example
A sugar mill uses sugarcane, which loses weight and spoils quickly. The mill therefore tends to locate near cane fields. A bakery uses flour but sells perishable bread to a city market, so it tends to locate near consumers. The reasoning turns on weight loss, perishability and transport cost, not on the size of the factory.
Traps
Do not place rabi in the monsoon season. Do not claim the Green Revolution transformed all crops equally. Do not treat all manufacturing as footloose. Do not confuse agricultural output with manufacturing value addition.