Cropping System and Cropping Pattern – UPSC IAS

• A cropping system is the whole arrangement on a field over a period of years: the crops chosen, their sequence and the management techniques applied to them.
• A cropping pattern is the narrower idea of how much area each crop holds at a given time, along with how crops and fallow follow one another.
• The two are linked by a short formula: Cropping System = Cropping Pattern + Management.
• India’s farmland is nearly fixed, at about 139 million hectares of net sown area in 2023-24, so the choice of system decides how much more a field can yield.

Cropping System

Meaning and Objectives

• The word system means a set of elements or components that are inter-related and interact with one another.
• A cropping system has two objectives:
  • Efficient use of all resources, namely land, water and solar radiation.
  • Stable production and higher net returns for the farmer.
• Several systems are used to raise agricultural productivity, and the chart below sets out the main ones.

Three Routes to Higher Production

• Nearly all physically suitable land is already ploughed, which leaves intensification as the realistic path.
  • Its measure is cropping intensity, which reached 156.8% in 2023-24.

Cropping Pattern

Meaning

• Cropping pattern is the share of land held by each crop at a chosen moment.
  • It shows the relative importance of each crop in a region or a country.
  • It is a dynamic notion, changing over space and over time. A shift in the pattern means land has moved from one crop to another.
• The term covers four things:
  • Crop rotation followed by most farmers of a locality.
  • The type and arrangement of crops in time and space.
  • The yearly sequence and spatial arrangement of crops, or of crops and fallow, on a given area.
  • The share of area under various crops at a point of time in a unit area.

Measuring a Pattern

• Each crop is stated as a percentage of all land cropped in an enumeration unit:
  • Share of crop a = (area under crop a ÷ total cropped area of the unit) × 100.
• Crops can then be graded by their share:

• How many crops enter and how strong each one is can yield many different pattern regions. The method overlaps with the wider analysis of crop combination.

Cropping Pattern in India

• A broad picture of India’s patterns can be presented by taking the major crops into consideration, in two steps:
  • The crop with the highest percentage of the sown area of a region is taken as the base crop.
  • All other alternative crops sown on a large scale in that region are then added to the pattern.
• Two examples follow from the map:
  • Maharashtra: cotton is the base crop and jowar the large-scale alternative, which gives a cotton-jowar pattern.
  • Eastern India (West Bengal, Assam, Odisha): rice is the base crop, with jute and tea grown widely, which gives a rice-jute-tea pattern.

• Crop-by-crop distribution, the forces behind each pattern and the change since Independence are set out in the study of the cropping pattern of India.

Mixed Farming

• Mixed farming is a system on one farm that combines crop production with livestock, poultry, fisheries, beekeeping and similar activities, so as to meet as many of the farmer’s needs as possible.
• Crops, allied activities and animal rearing run side by side, so that each benefits from the others.
  • In India, cattle dung serves as manure, and in lean crop periods cattle still provide milk and meat.
  • This arrangement gives the farmer a regular income.
• Its objective is subsistence with higher profitability, without altering the ecological balance.
• A cropping system is an important component of mixed farming, and mixed farming in turn supports a sound cropping system:
  • Manure from domesticated animals feeds organic farming.
  • Fish can be combined with crops, as in the rice-fish culture of eastern India.
• Rice-growing tracts suit this combination of crops and livestock well.

Types of Cropping System

Mono Cropping

• Mono cropping is growing the same crop on the same land year after year, for example rice on one plot every year.
• It is common where one crop has a strong advantage:
  • Wide tracts of the heavy rainfall belt in eastern India remain under rice monoculture, despite scope for diversifying.
  • Assured canal water and support prices hold many irrigated command areas to a narrow set of crops. Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh turned to rice alongside their traditional wheat once irrigation spread after the mid-1960s.
• Tobacco is often grown continuously on one plot too, because its cash returns are so high.

Crop Rotation

• In crop rotation, the crops on a field are changed from year to year in a planned order.
• A nitrogen-fixing crop in the rotation restores the soil. Pulses and groundnut are widely used for this purpose.

Multiple Cropping

• Multiple cropping means growing two or more crops on the same field in a year.
• It intensifies cropping in time and space without lowering soil fertility: more crops within the year, and more crops on the same land at one time.
• Its features:
  • Crops may stand on the same land together or one after another within the year.
  • The crops help to replenish soil fertility. Sowing pulses after rice, for example, adds nitrogenous compounds to the soil.
  • Crops are generally of short duration.
• Limiting factors are the low intensity of irrigation and the use of long-duration varieties.
• High-yielding seeds widened its scope. New rice and wheat varieties ripen in about 100 and 110 days, against some 130 and 150 days for the traditional ones, and this leaves room for another crop.

Intercropping

• Intercropping is growing two or more crops at the same time on the same land, in a definite row arrangement or fixed ratio.
  • The picture shows maize, soybean and oats in a fixed row order.
  • Wheat and mustard are commonly arranged in rows at a ratio of 9:1.
• It raises cropping intensity in the space dimension.
• Cropping intensity is the number of crops raised from one field during an agricultural year:
  • Cropping Intensity = (Gross Cropped Area ÷ Net Sown Area) × 100.
  • Gross cropped area counts a piece of land once for every time it is cultivated in the year. Net sown area counts it only once in that year.
  • India’s average stood at 136% in older figures and at 156.8% in 2023-24.

Multi-Storeyed, Multi-Tiered or Multilevel Cropping

• This is growing two or more crops of different heights together on the same land over a given period.
  • One combination is sugarcane + mustard + onion or potato.
• The taller crop gives shade, and its fallen leaves give nutrients, to the crop in focus.
  • Coffee is the classic case, with tall trees shading the bushes. Tea too is planted under shade trees, and the pepper vine climbs other trees for support.
• It is practised mostly in orchards and plantations, to make the fullest use of solar energy even at high planting density.

Mixed Cropping

• Mixed cropping is growing two or more crops together on the same land without a definite row pattern or fixed ratio.
• Seed is generally broadcast, and the practice is common in the dryland areas of India.
• It is a form of subsistence farming.
• Its main objective is to reduce the risk of total crop failure and to meet the farmer’s needs for food and fodder.
  • If rains are good, the water-loving crop does well. If they fail, maize, millets and pulses still yield something.
• Typical mixtures:
  • Rainfed fields may hold four to five crops at once. Under jhum (shifting cultivation), the number can reach ten to fifteen.
  • Kharif: millets, maize and pulses. Rabi: wheat, gram and barley.
• The price of this insurance is a lower overall output and yield per hectare.
• Intercropping is the newer, ordered form of mixed cropping.

Sequence or Sequential Cropping

• Sequential cropping is growing two or more crops in quick succession on the same land within a farming year.
• The next crop goes in after the earlier one is harvested, so intensification is only in the time dimension and there is no competition between crops.
• Harvesting and the next sowing may happen together or close together.
  • After maize is harvested, potato is sown. After the potato is dug, chilli is sown.
• It is also called non-overlapping cropping, because the crops do not overlap.

• In this picture, the “+” sign marks crops that follow one another through the year.

Ratoon Cropping

• Ratooning may be classed under sequential cropping.
• A fresh crop grows from the stubble (the lower part left after harvest) or the suckers of the first crop, with no replanting.
• It is also called stubble cropping, re-harvesting or second crop.
• It is used widely in sugarcane and bananas. Its gains and limits in sugarcane are a large part of that crop’s economics.

Relay Cropping

• The idea comes from a relay race, in which four runners pass the flag from the first to the second, the second to the third and the third to the fourth.
• Relay cropping grows two or more crops so that their life cycles overlap for part of the time.
• The second crop is planted after the first has reached its reproductive stage, but before it is ready for harvest.
  • Potato, for example, is planted before maize is harvested.
• It is also called overlapping cropping.