291. Agriculture

Agriculture changes form when climate, soils, labour, capital and market distance change together. Intensive subsistence agriculture occupies densely populated monsoon lands where rice, wheat or millets are grown mainly for local food security. Commercial grain farming occupies wide temperate grasslands where farms are large, settlement density is lower and machines replace much manual labour. Mixed farming combines crops with cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry; it reduces risk because fodder, manure and animal income circulate inside the farm. Dairy farming locates close to towns because fresh milk requires daily care, cooling and quick transport. Mediterranean agriculture uses cool wet winters for growth and dry summers for ripening olives, grapes, figs and citrus. Plantation agriculture in humid tropics concentrates capital and labour on a single export crop such as tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, oil palm, sugarcane or banana. Pastoral nomadism follows pasture and water in drylands, while shifting cultivation in forests follows fallow cycles. A second axis is ownership and technology: subsistence farming usually has smaller holdings and family labour, while commercial farming requires credit, machines, storage and transport. A third axis is ecological risk: wet deltas face flood and water-control problems, drylands face rainfall failure, and plantations face price and pest shocks. Rajasthan supplies a useful control case: Thar dryland farming comparison shows that bajra, guar, moth and mustard respond to rainfall uncertainty, not to the humid or temperate belts described above. The Indira Gandhi Canal command in north-west Rajasthan adds irrigation, but its cropping logic remains different from wet paddy deltas or European dairy districts.