Agricultural Regions of India

Agricultural region is an area which represents the quality of agricultural land use and its cropping pattern. It generally depicts similarities in the nature of crops grown, their combination pattern, method of cultivation, average quantum of inputs and orientation of farming activities. Similarities mostly arise out of the consistency of physical and agro-climatic conditions and socio- cultural characteristics.

Factors like temperature, altitude, rainfall, soils are taken into consideration in determining agricultural regions.

With the invention of new farm technologies, agriculture become drought proof and growth become more regionally balanced. It can be said that however hard we try to implement the changes in the cropping pattern and other structural changes, the factor of agro-climatic conditions, cannot be ignored. There are around seven regions in India:

1. Rice-Jute-Tea Region

This includes valleys and river deltas, lowlands in the states of Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, northern and eastern Bihar, Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, and parts of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and Tarai region of Uttar Pradesh. Rainfall varies from 180-250cm.

2. Wheat and Sugarcane Region

This Includes Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab where rich fertile alluvial soils with some parts having black and red soils are there. Rainfall is moderate generally.

3. Cotton Region

It consists of black cotton soil area of the Deccan plateau where the rainfall varies from 75-100cm. Other crops like  jowar, bajra, gram, sugarcane, wheat, etc. are also grown.

4. Maize and Coarse Crops Region

It includes northern Gujarat and western Rajasthan where rainfall is below 50 cm. Agriculture is done with the way of irrigation in most parts.

5. Millets and Oilseeds Region

It includes parts of Karnataka, southern Andhra Pradesh, parts of Tamilnadu and eastern Kerela. Rainfall is similar like in cotton region that is 75-100 cm. Oilseeds grown are groundnut and caster while the millets include ragi, jowar and bajra.

6. Fruits and Vegetable Region

This region covers Assam in east to Kashmir in West where rainfall is around 200cmin the East and 60 cm in the west. Fruits like Apple, peach, cherries, plum, apricot are grown in the west while oranges are important in the east.

7. Temperate Himalayan Region

This region is spread over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kashmir and some adjoining areas. The tree-fruits form a large part of agricultural production.