Consider the following statements with reference to cultivated area of some countries of the world : 1. In comparison to USA, China and Japan, India has highest geographical area under cultivation. 2. India’s location in tropical monsoon region helps diversified cropping all through the year. Which of the above statements is/are correct ?
- (a)Both 1 and 2
- (b)Neither 1 nor 2
- (c)Only 1
- (d)Only 2
Correct — A, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 holds on the internationally comparable series. Arable land as reported to the World Bank from FAO's country returns stood, for 2022, at about 154.0 million hectares for India, 151.6 million hectares for the United States, 108.6 million hectares for China and only 4.1 million hectares for Japan. India therefore has the largest cultivated area of the four named countries, and by a wide margin over China and Japan. Statement 2 is the standard textbook proposition about India's agricultural calendar, and it is sound. India lies in the tropical monsoon belt, where a seasonal reversal of winds delivers a wet south-west monsoon from June to September and a comparatively dry, cool winter, and where the low latitude keeps the growing season alive all year in most of the country. Out of that rhythm come three distinct cropping seasons on the same land — kharif sown with the monsoon rains and harvested from September, rabi sown on residual soil moisture and winter rain and harvested in March and April, and the short summer zaid crop between the two — which is exactly what 'diversified cropping all through the year' means. So both statements stand and the answer is (a). One caution that will keep you honest in a harder version of this question: the India–USA gap is narrow. The United States was marginally ahead of India as recently as around 2019, and the two are separated by only two or three million hectares today, so 'India has the largest arable area in the world' is a true but close-run claim, not a runaway one. The far safer version of the same idea — and the one that never flips — is that India devotes a much higher PROPORTION of its land to cultivation than any of the other three.
- (b)Neither 1 nor 2 — Wrong on both counts. India does have the largest cultivated area among the four countries named, and its monsoon location does underwrite a year-round cropping calendar. A candidate lands here by over-correcting — remembering that Chinese and American yields per hectare are higher than India's and concluding that the United States must also farm more land. Area and productivity are different things, and this statement is about area.
- (c)Only 1 — Rejects statement 2, but statement 2 is correct. The seasonal reversal of winds is the defining feature of the monsoon climate, and it is what gives India its kharif, rabi and zaid seasons on the same fields. The doubt candidates feel here is usually about the word 'tropical' — the Tropic of Cancer cuts across the middle of India, so the northern half is technically subtropical. That is a refinement, not a refutation: standard physical geography classifies India's climate as the tropical monsoon type, and the monsoon rhythm governs the cropping calendar in the subtropical north just as much as in the peninsular south.
- (d)Only 2 — Rejects statement 1, but statement 1 is correct on the FAO and World Bank arable-land series — India about 154 million hectares against the USA's 151.6 million, China's 108.6 million and Japan's 4.1 million in 2022. The instinct to reject it comes from a real fact wrongly applied: the United States has a far larger total geographical area than India, so it feels as though it must also cultivate more. It does not, because a very large share of American territory is range, forest, mountain and desert, whereas nearly half of India's land surface is under the plough.
Land-use geography distinguishes several nested quantities that examiners deliberately blur. Geographical area is a country's total land surface. Arable land, the internationally comparable FAO category, is land under temporary crops, temporary meadows, market gardens and land temporarily fallow. Net sown area, the Indian Land Use Statistics term, is the land actually sown at least once in the year. Gross cropped area counts the same field again for each crop taken from it in the year, and the ratio of gross to net sown area is the cropping intensity. India's distinction rests on all of these at once: a large absolute cultivated area, an unusually high proportion of the country under cultivation, and a cropping intensity above 150 per cent because the same field carries more than one crop a year.
The examiner is testing whether you know that size of country and size of farmland are not the same variable. The United States and China are each roughly three times India's territory, yet India out-crops both, because India's alluvial plains, its long growing season and its dense rural population push land into cultivation that in the United States would be range or forest. Japan is the reductio — a mountainous archipelago with barely four million hectares of arable land, less than three per cent of India's. Statement 2 then supplies the reason underneath statement 1: it is the monsoon that makes multiple cropping possible, and multiple cropping is what makes such intensive land use worth sustaining. Reason to the answer this way rather than by trying to recall four numbers, and note the honest limit — India's lead over the United States in arable area is only two to three million hectares, so learn the ranking, not a false sense of dominance.
- Arable land, 2022 (World Bank / FAO): India about 154.0 million hectares, United States about 151.6 million, China about 108.6 million, Japan about 4.1 million. India is the largest of the four — but the United States was marginally ahead as recently as around 2019, so the margin is thin.
- India's net sown area, on the Indian Land Use Statistics series, is of the order of 140 million hectares — roughly 46 per cent of the REPORTING area for land-utilisation statistics (about 305-306 M ha), not of the total geographical area, a far higher share than in the United States, China or Japan.
- India's three cropping seasons: kharif (sown with the south-west monsoon in June–July, harvested September–October — rice, maize, jowar, bajra, cotton, groundnut), rabi (sown October–December, harvested March–April — wheat, barley, gram, mustard, peas), and the short zaid season between them (watermelon, cucurbits, fodder, some pulses).
- The defining feature of the monsoon climate is the seasonal reversal of winds — onshore and rain-bearing in summer, offshore and dry in winter — which is what allows two or even three harvests a year from the same field.
- Area and productivity are separate variables. India's per-hectare yields in cereals remain below China's, so a larger cultivated area does not translate into higher output per hectare.
Arable land as reported to the World Bank from FAO country returns, 2022. India tops the group, which is what makes statement 1 correct — but note the narrow two-to-three-million-hectare margin over the United States rather than assuming a large lead.
- Equating total geographical area with cultivated area. The United States, China, Canada, Russia and Brazil all dwarf India in territory, yet India has the largest or joint-largest arable area in the world.
- Confusing arable land (the FAO comparable series, about 154 million ha for India) with net sown area (the Indian statistical series, about 140 million ha). Questions phrased in international terms want the first; questions on Indian land-use statistics want the second.
- Sliding from area to productivity. India leads on cultivated area but not on yield per hectare — UPSC has asked exactly this distinction, and a candidate who assumes the two go together will get it wrong.
UPPSC frames this as a two-statement item, one about area and one about the monsoon rationale, and usually credits both; UPSC prefers a comparison with China across several agricultural variables — arable area, share irrigated, yield per hectare — in which only the area statement is true.
Consider the following statements: 1. India has more arable area than China. 2. The proportion of irrigated area is more in India as compared to China. 3. The average productivity per hectare in Indian agriculture is higher than that in China. How many of the above statements are correct?
- (a) Only one
- (b) Only two
- (c) All three
- (d) None
Answer(a) Only one
The same claim, tested the year before with the trap attached: India does have more arable area than China — that statement is the single correct one — but its irrigated share and its yield per hectare do not beat China's. Learn this pair together and you can answer both questions.
The seasonal reversal of winds is the typical characteristic of
- (a) Equatorial climate
- (b) Mediterranean climate
- (c) Monsoon climate
- (d) All of the above climates
Answer(c) Monsoon climate
Statement 2 in one line. The seasonal reversal of winds is what defines the monsoon climate, and it is that reversal — wet summer, dry cool winter, long growing season — that produces India's kharif, rabi and zaid calendar.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Sugarcane and sugar production in U.P. is more than Maharashtra but productivity is less. Reason (R) : Most of the sugar factories in Maharashtra are in cooperative sector. Codes :
- (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- (b) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (c) (A) is true, but (R) is false
- (d) (A) is false, but (R) is true
Answer(b) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
UPPSC's favourite distinction in miniature — more area and more output need not mean higher productivity. Uttar Pradesh out-produces Maharashtra in cane while yielding less per hectare, exactly as India out-crops China in area while yielding less per hectare.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following countries has the largest area of arable land?
- (a)Russia
- (b)India
- (c)China
- (d)Brazil
Answer(b) India — India's arable area was about 154 million hectares in 2022 on the FAO/World Bank series, ahead of the United States (about 152 million), Russia and China (about 109 million). India achieves this on a much smaller national territory because nearly half its land surface is cultivated.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The zaid cropping season in India refers to which of the following?
- (a)Crops sown with the onset of the south-west monsoon and harvested in September–October
- (b)Crops sown in October–December and harvested in March–April
- (c)The short summer season between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing
- (d)Crops grown only on rainfed uplands in a single season
Answer(c) The short summer season between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing — zaid runs roughly March to June and carries watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, other cucurbits, fodder and some vegetables. Option (a) describes kharif and option (b) describes rabi.