NDA (I) 2021 General Ability Test · Question 133 of 149

Correct — C, Canada. Intensive subsistence agriculture — small landholdings worked very intensively with abundant human labour, mainly to feed the cultivator's own family — dominates the densely populated monsoon lands of Asia such as India, Japan and Indonesia. Canada is sparsely populated and practises large-scale, mechanised, extensive commercial farming (chiefly wheat on the Prairies), so intensive subsistence agriculture is not predominant there.

• (a)India — India is a classic land of intensive subsistence farming — small holdings, heavy labour input and food crops like rice and wheat — so it is a place where it IS practised.
• (b)Japan — Japan farms tiny, intensively cultivated holdings, especially wet-rice, with very high yields per hectare — a textbook example of intensive subsistence agriculture.
• (d)Indonesia — Indonesia (e.g. densely populated Java) is dominated by intensive wet-rice subsistence farming, so it too is a place where the practice predominates.

Intensive subsistence agriculture is farming on small plots with high inputs of human labour (and often manure/irrigation) to obtain maximum output per unit area, largely for the family's own consumption. It is characteristic of the densely peopled monsoon regions of South, South-East and East Asia. It contrasts with extensive commercial farming, where large farms are worked with machinery mainly for the market.

Three options are crowded Asian monsoon countries; the fourth, Canada, is a thinly populated country of the Americas. The discriminator is population density and farm type: the odd one out is the land of extensive commercial (not intensive subsistence) agriculture — Canada.

• Intensive subsistence farming = small holdings, high labour input, mainly for self-consumption.
• It predominates in monsoon Asia — India, China, Japan, Indonesia and South-East Asia.
• Canada practises extensive commercial grain (wheat) farming on the Prairies, using machinery and large farms.
• The key variables are population density, farm size and whether output is for family use or the market.

• Assuming a developed country like Japan must be commercial — Japan is intensively farmed subsistence-style.
• Overlooking population density, the key clue that separates Canada from the crowded Asian countries.

Asked as 'which country does/does not practise agriculture type X', or by matching a farming system to its typical region.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Intensive subsistence agriculture is most characteristic of which of the following regions?

  • (a)The Canadian Prairies
  • (b)Monsoon Asia
  • (c)The Argentine Pampas
  • (d)The North American Great Plains

  Answer(b) Monsoon Asia — densely populated regions farm small plots intensively for self-consumption.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Large mechanised wheat farms worked mainly for the market are an example of

  • (a)intensive subsistence farming
  • (b)extensive commercial grain farming
  • (c)shifting cultivation
  • (d)plantation agriculture

  Answer(b) extensive commercial grain farming — typical of thinly populated regions like the Canadian Prairies.