Geography · Ch 11 — Land Resources and Agriculture
Rice
Rice
Rice is the staple food for the vast majority of India’s population. Though it is traditionally seen as a crop of tropical humid areas, it has many varieties that adapt to different agro-climatic regions. Rice is grown successfully from sea level up to about 2,000 metres altitude, and from the humid regions of eastern India to the dry but irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, and northern Rajasthan.
In southern states and West Bengal, the climate allows two or even three crops of rice in a single agricultural year. In West Bengal, farmers grow three distinct crops: ‘aus’, ‘aman’, and ‘boro’. In contrast, in the Himalayas and the northwestern parts of the country, rice is grown only as a kharif crop during the southwest monsoon season.
India contributes 22.07 per cent of the world’s rice production and ranked second after China in 2018. About one-fourth of the total cropped area in the country is under rice cultivation.
Leading rice-producing states: West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab.
States with high rice yield: Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, and Kerala. In the first four of these states, almost the entire land under rice cultivation is irrigated.
Punjab and Haryana are not traditional rice-growing areas. Rice cultivation in the irrigated parts of these states was introduced only in the 1970s, following the Green Revolution. The higher yield of rice in this region is due to three factors: …
The photograph shows a group of farmers standing in a flooded paddy field, bent over at the waist, carefully pressing rice seedlings into the waterlogged soil by hand. The field is a shallow, muddy sheet of water — typical of the wet rice cultivation method used across much of southern India. The farmers are spaced apart in rows, each working a small patch, and the seedlings they hold are young, green shoots bundled together. There are no machines or animals visible; the work is entirely manual. The image is black-and-white, which suggests it is an archival photograph, and the caption places the scene specifically in the southern parts of India.
What this figure teaches is the labour-intensive, traditional method of rice transplantation that remains common in regions with abundant rainfall or assured irrigation. The flooded field is not accidental — rice requires standing water during its early growth stages, and transplanting seedlings by hand allows for precise spacing, which improves yield. The photograph visually reinforces the textbook's point that rice is a staple crop grown under varied conditions, but that in southern states and West Bengal, the climate permits two or even three crops a year. The act of transplanting shown here is the first step in that cycle, typically done at the start of the kharif season or, in double-cropped areas, after the first harvest. …
The map is a choropleth (shaded-area) outline of India, titled INDIA / RICE. It includes neighbouring countries, latitude–longitude graticule lines, the Tropic of Cancer, a scale bar, and a north arrow. The shading uses only two categories: dark grey for ‘MAJOR AREA’ and light grey for ‘MINOR AREA’.
What the dark-grey major areas show:
The densest rice-producing regions are concentrated in the eastern part of the country. The entire eastern coastal plain — from the deltas of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri rivers — is shaded dark. West Bengal and the lower Ganga plains (stretching into Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh) are also dark. The Assam valley in the northeast is another major area. On the west coast, a narrow strip running from Kerala up through coastal Karnataka and Maharashtra is shaded dark as well.
What the light-grey minor areas show:
The rest of the country is covered in light grey. This includes most of the peninsular interior (the Deccan plateau, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha’s interior), the north-western plains (Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan), and the Himalayan foothills. Note that Punjab and Haryana — though not traditional rice regions — are still shown as minor areas because rice is grown there under irrigation.
What the map teaches about rice distribution: …