MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 16 of 100

Correct — option (3), 'Only (c)'. The stem prints 'not' in bold, so the question asks which of the four printed statements is NOT a characteristic of intensive subsistence agriculture, and the answer must contain the false statement only. Intensive subsistence agriculture is the farming system of the densely populated monsoon lands of east, south and south-east Asia — China, Japan, Korea, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand — and its defining condition is that a very large rural population has to be fed from a very small amount of land per household. Everything else about the system follows from that. Holdings are small and often fragmented further by inheritance; labour input per hectare is enormous, much of it manual and family labour with simple implements; manure, irrigation and, in the modern period, fertiliser and high-yielding varieties are applied heavily; and land is worked to its limit through multiple cropping. Statement (a), intensive cultivation, is therefore the system's own name and definition. Statement (d), maximum yield per hectare, is its objective and its result — output per unit of land is high, even though output per worker is low, and that contrast between high land productivity and low labour productivity is the standard way of describing this system. Statement (b), animal husbandry as a business complementary to agriculture, is likewise characteristic: cattle and buffalo supply draught power and manure and a supplementary income from milk, and the household economy of the small Asian farm depends on them. Statement (c), the vast size of the farm, is the one that does not belong: large farms are the mark of extensive agriculture — commercial grain farming on the prairies and steppes, or commercial livestock ranching — where holdings are measured in hundreds of hectares, machinery replaces labour, and yield per hectare is comparatively low. Only statement (c) is not a characteristic, so option (3) is the answer.

• (1)Only (a) — Statement (a) is intensive cultivation, which is not merely a characteristic of this system but its name — 'intensive' describes precisely the application of large amounts of labour and inputs to a small area of land in order to extract the maximum from it. Selecting this option in a question that asks for what is NOT a characteristic means rejecting the system's own definition. It is the option a candidate lands on when the bolded negation in the stem has been missed and the question has been read as asking for the single most characteristic feature.
• (2)(b) and (d) — Both statements named here are genuine features. Animal husbandry complementary to cultivation, statement (b), is integral to the small Asian farm, which depends on livestock for draught power, manure and supplementary income. Maximum yield per hectare, statement (d), is the system's whole objective and the reason such heavy labour and input are applied to so little land. Choosing this pair usually means the candidate has read the stem positively and is nominating what looks like the least essential features, when in fact the false statement is the one about farm size.
• (4)(b), (c) and (d) — This option correctly includes statement (c), the vast size of the farm, and then adds two statements that are true of the system. Intensive subsistence agriculture is characterised by high yields per hectare and by livestock kept alongside crops, so condemning statements (b) and (d) as non-characteristics is wrong. In negative questions of this shape, spotting the false statement is only half the work; the answer must exclude every statement that is true, and this option is the standard trap for candidates who identify the error and then over-select.

Agricultural systems are classified by the intensity with which land and labour are used and by whether output is consumed or sold. Intensive subsistence agriculture occupies one extreme: tiny holdings, very high labour and input per hectare, high yields per hectare but low output per worker, and production primarily for the household. Extensive commercial grain farming occupies the other: very large holdings, high mechanisation, low labour per hectare, relatively low yields per hectare but very high output per worker, and production entirely for the market — the wheat farms of the Canadian and American prairies, the Pampas, the Ukrainian steppe and the Australian downs. Between them lie mixed farming, dairy farming, plantation agriculture, market gardening and commercial livestock rearing. The single most useful discrimination for examinations is between yield per hectare and output per worker, because it is exactly the pair that intensive and extensive systems reverse.

MPSC's geography section tests agricultural typology through characteristics rather than definitions, and almost always in the negative form used here, because a negative stem lets the commission print three true statements and one that belongs to a neighbouring system. The neighbouring system is nearly always extensive commercial grain farming, and the imported characteristic is nearly always farm size or mechanisation. Two habits make this family safe: first, read the bolded negation and mark each statement true or false before looking at the options; second, hold each farming system as a short profile — holding size, labour intensity, yield per hectare, output per worker, principal crops and world regions — so that a statement can be checked against the profile instead of against a general impression. The typology also feeds the questions on Indian agriculture, where the same distinction explains why the average operational holding in India is close to a hectare while yields per hectare in the irrigated belts are high, and why fragmentation of holdings is treated as a policy problem rather than as a mere statistic.

• Intensive subsistence agriculture is practised in the densely populated monsoon lands of east, south and south-east Asia and is characterised by very small and often fragmented holdings.
• It uses very high inputs of labour per hectare, together with manure, irrigation and, in the modern period, fertilisers and high-yielding varieties, and it commonly involves multiple cropping.
• Yield per hectare is high while output per worker is low — the reverse of the position in extensive commercial grain farming.
• Livestock kept for draught power, manure and milk is complementary to cultivation in this system rather than a separate commercial enterprise.
• Large farm size, heavy mechanisation and low labour input are characteristics of extensive commercial grain farming, practised on the prairies, the Pampas, the steppes and the Australian downs.

• Missing the bolded 'not' in the stem and answering with the most characteristic feature instead of the odd one out
• Identifying the false statement correctly and then including true statements alongside it, as option (4) does
• Confusing high yield per hectare with high output per worker; intensive subsistence agriculture has the first and not the second

Agricultural-typology questions in MPSC papers are set as negative statement sets far more often than as straightforward definitions, and the false statement is nearly always a feature borrowed from the opposite system — large holdings, heavy machinery or production for export inserted into a list about subsistence farming. Expect companion items that ask which crop dominates the system, which world regions practise it, or which Indian states show its characteristics most sharply. Learning each system as a six-line profile, and always marking statements true or false before reading the options, is what makes the negative format harmless.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In intensive subsistence agriculture, which of the following combinations correctly describes productivity ?

  • (a)High yield per hectare and high output per worker
  • (b)High yield per hectare and low output per worker
  • (c)Low yield per hectare and high output per worker
  • (d)Low yield per hectare and low output per worker

  Answer(b) High yield per hectare and low output per worker — very large amounts of labour are applied to very small holdings, so land productivity is high while labour productivity is low. Extensive commercial grain farming reverses this, producing relatively low yields per hectare but very high output per worker because machinery replaces labour on large holdings.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Large holdings, heavy mechanisation, low labour input per hectare and production entirely for the market are characteristics of which farming system ?

  • (a)Intensive subsistence agriculture
  • (b)Shifting cultivation
  • (c)Extensive commercial grain farming
  • (d)Market gardening

  Answer(c) Extensive commercial grain farming — practised on the prairies of North America, the Pampas, the steppes and the Australian downs, where wheat is grown on very large farms with machinery rather than labour. Market gardening is the opposite in scale, being small, intensive and located close to urban markets.