CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 26 of 120

Correct — C, Sugarcane. The question is not asking which crop needs the least water in the abstract; it is asking which one falls outside a named farming system. NCERT's Class 12 chapter on land resources and agriculture splits rainfed farming into two halves by how much soil moisture the growing season supplies. Dryland farming is confined to regions with annual rainfall under about 75 cm, and it grows hardy, drought-resistant crops — ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar — alongside measures for conserving soil moisture and harvesting rain. Wetland farming is where rainfall exceeds what the plants need in the rainy season, and it is there that the water-intensive crops sit: rice, jute and sugarcane. Sugarcane is named on the wetland side of that split, and it is the only one of the four options that is. Sugarcane is a long-duration crop that stands in the field for roughly a year and is grown on assured irrigation almost everywhere in India, including in the dry Deccan tracts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, where canal or well water — not the rain — carries it. Growing a crop inside a dry region is not the same as growing it under dryland farming.

• (a)Jowar — Jowar (sorghum) is one of the classic dry-farming cereals of the peninsular interior. The same NCERT chapter describes it as a rainfed crop in the tracts south of the Vindhyas, grown on residual moisture rather than on canal water.
• (b)Ragi — Ragi is named by NCERT in the dryland list itself — 'hardy and drought resistant crops such as ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar'. A finger-millet crop on the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu uplands is the textbook picture of dryland farming.
• (d)Groundnut — Groundnut is described in the same chapter as largely a rainfed kharif crop of the drylands, and UPSC has separately asked candidates to recognise it as a predominantly rainfed crop. It belongs on the dryland side, not outside it.

Indian farming is first divided by its water source into irrigated farming and rainfed (barani) farming. Rainfed farming is then divided again by how adequate soil moisture is during the cropping season: dryland farming where annual rainfall is under about 75 cm, and wetland farming where rainfall exceeds the crop's requirement in the rainy season. The dryland belt runs across the drier interior — western Rajasthan, the rain-shadow Deccan, parts of Gujarat, Karnataka and Telangana — and its agronomy is built around conserving what little moisture there is. Wetland regions face the opposite hazards, flood and soil erosion, and can carry crops that stand in water.

The reasoning shortcut is to sort each option by water demand rather than by region. Three of the four names — jowar, ragi and groundnut — are hardy kharif crops that ripen on the monsoon alone. Sugarcane cannot. The trap is geographical: sugarcane is grown heavily in Maharashtra, much of which is semi-arid and drought-prone, so a candidate who reasons from where the crop is seen rather than from how it is watered can talk himself into keeping it. The distinction the paper wants is between a crop grown in a dry area and a crop grown by the dryland method, and sugarcane in the Deccan is sustained by wells, canals and lift irrigation. A second useful cross-check is that UPSC has itself asked which crop is the least water-efficient of a set and keyed sugarcane.

• NCERT: 'In India, the dryland farming is largely confined to the regions having annual rainfall less than 75 cm.'
• The dryland crop list NCERT gives is ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar, farmed with soil-moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting.
• Wetland farming, in the same passage, is where 'various water intensive crops such as rice, jute and sugarcane' are grown, along with freshwater aquaculture.
• The same chapter calls groundnut largely a rainfed kharif crop of the drylands and treats jowar as a rainfed crop in the tracts south of the Vindhyas.
• Sugarcane occupies the field for roughly a full year, which is why it is grown on assured irrigation even in semi-arid districts.

• Reading the question as 'which crop needs most water' rather than 'which crop is outside dryland farming' — here the two happen to agree, but they need not.
• Assuming that because a crop is grown in a dry State it must be a dryland crop; sugarcane in the Deccan runs on irrigation.
• Mixing up dryland farming with dry farming techniques and with shifting cultivation — the last is a different system altogether.

As an odd-one-out from a crop list, or as a statements item testing the rainfall threshold and the crop sets on either side of the dryland-wetland split.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In India, dryland farming is largely confined to regions with annual rainfall of about

  • (a)less than 75 cm
  • (b)75 to 100 cm
  • (c)100 to 150 cm
  • (d)more than 150 cm

  Answer(a) less than 75 cm — NCERT places dryland farming in regions of annual rainfall under 75 cm, where hardy crops such as ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar are grown with soil-moisture conservation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following sets contains only crops associated with wetland farming in India?

  • (a)Bajra, gram and guar
  • (b)Rice, jute and sugarcane
  • (c)Ragi, moong and groundnut
  • (d)Jowar, bajra and sesamum

  Answer(b) Rice, jute and sugarcane — these are the water-intensive crops NCERT names under wetland farming; the other three sets are dryland or rainfed crops.