Question.
Explain the relationship between irrigation and cropping intensity in India. ( 64th BPSC, 2019)
Answer.
As we know that net sown areas of the country are limited and we can not increase the net sown areas of the country; To met the growing food demands, modern agriculture technology is needed to increase food grains production; It can be used in two ways:
- Raise the productivity of crops per unit area
- Increase the cropping intensity
What is cropping Intensity?
Cropping intensity refers to growing the number of crops in the same cropping field in one agriculture year.
For example,
- If only one crop is growing in one agriculture year then cropping intensity will be one.
- If three crops are raising in the same field in a year then the cropping intensity will be three.
Increase cropping intensity is a good choice as India is a labor surplus country with limited land. It will serve two purposes:
- Increase production
- Reduce unemployment in rural areas
But the problem is, In India, we get rains only in the Monsoon seasons around 2 months, and precipitation is not equally distributed to all the regions of the county and monsoonal rains are also uncertain within the monsoon season;
To increase the cropping intensity, we need the availability of irrigation facilities to fulfill the requirement of moisture to soils and crops. Irrigation enables us to grow crops when there are no rains.
Relationship between irrigation and cropping intensity in India:
- Irrigation is a prerequisite to increase the cropping intensity.
- Due to uncertainty in monsoon, climate change, frequent drought, irregular rains, cropping intensity is not possible without irrigation.
- As we know that;
- Cropping intensity = ( gross cropped area/ Net Sown area)* 100
- Irrigation intensity= (Net irrigation area/ Net Sown area)*100
- Cropping intensity is directly proportional to the Net Irrigation area.
As per Agriculture Statistics at Glance 2015 report, the following are states with decreasing order of cropping intensity:
- Punjab(190)( Irrigation intensity is highest in India, it is approx. 98.1 %)
- Sikkim(187)
- West Bengal(186)
- Haryana(181)
- Himachal Pradesh(174)
From the above data, we can conclude that there will be higher cropping intensity for higher the net irrigated areas.
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