MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 40 of 100

Correct — D, Tomato. 'Productivity' in agricultural statistics means yield per unit area — tonnes per hectare — not total output. Among the four vegetables listed, tomato recorded the highest per-hectare yield in Madhya Pradesh in 2023-24. That fits the agronomy: tomato is a short-duration, heavily irrigated crop, usually raised from hybrid seed, transplanted, staked and increasingly grown under protected cultivation, so a hectare of tomato returns far more tonnage than a hectare of a bulb crop like onion or a long-duration crop like brinjal. Madhya Pradesh is also among India's biggest tomato-growing states, so both its area and its yield are closely tracked.

• (a)Onion — Onion is a major MP crop by volume and area, which is exactly what makes it tempting — but a bulb crop yields less per hectare than tomato, and the question asks about productivity, not production.
• (b)Potato — Potato is high-yielding and widely grown in MP's Malwa belt, and it is the closest rival here — but the official key marks tomato as the highest-productivity vegetable of the four in 2023-24.
• (c)Brinjal — Brinjal is grown across the state but has a lower per-hectare yield than tomato; it does not top MP's productivity table for this year.

Three different numbers describe any crop and exams switch between them deliberately: area (hectares sown), production (total tonnes harvested) and productivity or yield (production ÷ area, i.e. tonnes per hectare). A state can lead the country in production simply because it sows a huge area, while its productivity stays modest — and a crop can top the productivity table while contributing a small share of total output.

Here the four options are all crops MP grows in quantity, so the discriminator has to be yield per hectare, not familiarity. Vegetables that are transplanted, irrigated, hybrid-seeded and harvested repeatedly over a season — tomato above all — sit at the top of yield tables; bulb and root crops and long-duration solanaceous crops sit lower.

• Productivity = production ÷ area, measured in tonnes per hectare — distinct from total production
• Official key: among onion, potato, brinjal and tomato, tomato recorded Madhya Pradesh's highest productivity in 2023-24
• Madhya Pradesh is one of India's leading tomato-producing states, and a major producer of onion and potato as well
• MP is India's largest producer of garlic, and a leading producer of soybean and gram — its horticulture and pulses profile is a standing MPPSC favourite
• Horticulture data of this kind comes from the state horticulture department and the National Horticulture Board's area–production–productivity estimates

• Reading 'productivity' as 'production' — the single most common mistake in this question type
• Assuming the crop with the largest area or the biggest headline output must also have the highest yield
• Carrying a figure from one year's estimate into another — horticulture numbers are revised from advance to final estimates

MPPSC picks one superlative from the latest MP horticulture / Economic Survey table — highest production, highest productivity, or largest area. UPSC stays conceptual: what TOP crops are, why horticulture output now exceeds foodgrain output, and how yields compare across countries.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  'Operation Greens', launched by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, initially targeted which three crops?

  • (a)Wheat, rice and maize
  • (b)Tomato, onion and potato
  • (c)Tea, coffee and rubber
  • (d)Mango, banana and grapes

  Answer(b) Tomato, onion and potato — the 'TOP' crops, later extended to other fruits and vegetables.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  If a state's total vegetable production rises by 5% in a year while the area under vegetables rises by 10%, then productivity has:

  • (a)risen
  • (b)fallen
  • (c)remained unchanged
  • (d)cannot be determined from this information

  Answer(b) Fallen — yield per hectare is production divided by area, and area grew faster than output.