CHAPTER 4 AGRICULTURE

I. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS BRIEFLY:

Q1. What do we mean by agriculture?

Ans:- Agriculture is the primary activity which includes growing of crops, fruits, vegetables, flowers
and rearing of livestock. It is also known as farming.

Q2. State four salient features of intensive subsistence farming.

Ans:- The four salient features of intensive subsistence farming are:-

i) It is practised widely in densely populated regions of the world such as the monsoon regions of
Asia, i.e., India, China, Thailand, bangladesh and Myanmar.

ii) The size of the farms is small.

iii) The fields are cultivated throughout the year.

iv) Fields are mostly cultivated manually as they are too small for machines to operate.

v) Food crops such as rice, pulses, wheat, millets and oilseeds are popularly grown.

Q3. What is meant by 'extensive agriculture'?

Ans: In Russia, United States and Canada, each farm is quite large covering hundreds of hectares.
Manual labour is not possible on such huge farms. Machines are used widely for most of the
agricultural operations. The number of persons engaged in agriculture is small. It is obvious that such
mechanised farming requires a good deal of money. This type of agriculture is called extensive
agriculture.

Q4. What is shifting agriculture? what are its disadvantages?

Ans: Shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn cultivation is a type of farming activity which involves
clearing a plot of land by felling trees, burning the felled trees, mixing the ashes with soil, and then
growing crops like maize, yam, potatoes and cassava on the cleared land. And the soil loses its fer tility,
the land is abandoned and the cultivator moves on to a new plot.

This type of farming has the following disadvantages:

1. Deforestation

2. After some time the land loses its fertility.

3. Soil erosion.

4. Small patches of cultivation which is insufficient for feeding a large population.