CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 86 of 120

Correct — A, Rajasthan. Plantation agriculture means a single cash crop grown on a large estate, capital-intensive, worked by hired labour, and grown for a market and usually for a processing industry — tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane, banana and spices are the Indian examples. Every one of those crops needs plentiful and dependable water, and most need warm humid conditions and often a slope with good drainage. Rajasthan has none of that: the west is arid and semi-arid, the state's characteristic crops are bajra, jowar, pulses, oilseeds such as mustard, and it is known instead for pastoralism and dryland farming. Assam is the country's principal tea region, Kerala grows rubber, spices, coffee and coconut on plantations, and Nagaland has tea and rubber holdings in its hills; Rajasthan is the outlier.

• (b)Assam — Assam is the classic Indian plantation State — tea in the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys, which is exactly the estate-and-processing-industry model the term describes.
• (c)Nagaland — Nagaland's hill terrain and heavy rainfall support tea and rubber holdings, and plantation crops have been actively promoted there as an alternative to shifting cultivation.
• (d)Kerala — Kerala is plantation country several times over — rubber, coffee, cardamom, pepper, tea in the high ranges and coconut along the coast.

The standard classification of Indian farming distinguishes primitive subsistence agriculture, which includes shifting cultivation; intensive subsistence agriculture on small holdings with high labour input; and commercial agriculture, of which plantation farming is a special form. What marks the plantation out is scale and organisation — a single crop over a large area, migrant or hired labour, heavy capital, and a tight link to transport, processing and the market rather than to household consumption.

The question asks which State is not prominent for plantations, so three of the four must be plantation States and one must not. The quick route is water: plantation crops are water-hungry and Rajasthan is India's driest large State. A candidate who hesitates over Nagaland should note that the test in the stem is prominence, not scale — Nagaland's tea and rubber are modest in national terms but they are a recognised part of its agriculture, whereas Rajasthan has no plantation crop at all in the sense the term is used.

• Plantation agriculture grows a single crop on a large estate with hired labour and heavy capital, for a market and usually for a processing industry.
• Tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane, banana and spices are the principal Indian plantation crops.
• Assam is the leading tea-producing State; Kerala is the leading producer of natural rubber.
• Plantations depend on a well-developed network of transport and communication linking estate, processing plant and market.
• Rajasthan's agriculture is dominated by dryland crops such as bajra, jowar, pulses and mustard, together with livestock rearing.

• Assuming a small State cannot be prominent for a plantation crop; the test is whether the crop is grown that way, not the volume.
• Treating sugarcane in Uttar Pradesh as ordinary field cropping only; it is counted among plantation crops in the school classification.
• Confusing plantation agriculture with commercial grain farming, which is extensive rather than estate-based.

As an odd-one-out among States, as a crop-to-State pairing, or as a definition question on types of farming.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following States is the leading producer of natural rubber in India?

  • (a)Karnataka
  • (b)Kerala
  • (c)Tamil Nadu
  • (d)Tripura

  Answer(b) Kerala — rubber is the State's principal plantation crop, and the Rubber Board is headquartered at Kottayam.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is not a defining feature of plantation agriculture?

  • (a)A single crop grown on a large area
  • (b)Heavy use of capital and hired labour
  • (c)Production mainly for the grower's own household
  • (d)A close link with a processing industry

  Answer(c) Production mainly for the grower's own household — plantations are commercial by definition and produce for the market.