RURAL GEOGRAPHY

Many of the farmers who grow crops in South West India are subsistence farmers, growing rice on an intensive scale. Despite their hard work they produce only enough for their own family and, perhaps, the village.

Rice, with a high nutritional value, can form over three-quarters of the total local diet and is a sustainable form of farming.

Rural landscapes in an ELDC•Case Study: India’s West Coast

Rice farming in India

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RURAL GEOGRAPHY

• Warm all year round• Wet in the summer

months June to September is monsoonal)

• Monsoon climate

Climate

Name six differences between the typical British climate graph and India’s average

rainfall and temperature

RURAL GEOGRAPHY

The west coast of India is predominantly a rice growing area.

•Rice requires warm conditions and lots of water.

Crops

• Wet padi, a variety of rice, needs a rich soil. It is grown in silt which is deposited annually by the Ganges and its tributaries during the monsoon floods. This part of India and Bangladesh has high temperatures, over 21C, throughout the year and the continuous growing season allows two crops to be grown annually on the same piece if land. Rice, initially grown in nurseries, is transplanted as soon as the monsoon rains flood the padi-fields. During the dry season, when there is often insufficient water for rice, either vegetables or a cereal crop is grown.

• Rice growing is labour intensive. Much manual labour is needed to construct the bunds (embankments) around the padi-fields, to build irrigation channels, to prepare the fields, and to plant, weed and harvest the crop. Many farms, especially near the delta, are very small. They may only measure 1 hectare (size of a small football pitch) and be divided into 12 or 15 plots. The smallness of the farms and the poverty of the people means that hard-labour has to be used rather than machines. Water buffalo (oxen) provide manure and are used in preparing the padi-fields.

• Rice is planted in nurseries. The padi fields are ploughed so that the rice can be transplanted into them. The rice is harvested twice a year. Occasionally fruit trees and wheat is grown in addition and livestock such as chickens are kept alongside.

• Rice is grown along with some wheat, vegetables and chickens are managed for meat and eggs.

RURAL GEOGRAPHYCropsDraw a systems diagram for rice farming in Kerela

and identify the key features that are:• Physical (natural) inputs)• Human and economic inputs• processes• outputs

RURAL GEOGRAPHYMain features• Rice is grown in small fields in small farms.• Rice growing requires heavy rainfall and temperatures above

24°C all year. • Farms require lots of manual labour, have very small field sizes

and require little capital as technology is low. Farming is labour intensive

• Most farms are small and family run. Due to inheritance laws, plots are often scattered around the village which makes access and upkeep difficult. Most farms are subsistence and have no surplus remaining to sell for a profit.

• Low level of mechanisation as farmers cannot afford high-tech equipment so use oxen to plough the fields and manual labour to harvest the crops and small fields prevent machinery

• Soil bunds are walls built to retain the water in the flooded paddy fields and there also needs to be a source of water such as a nearby river or stream.

• Kerala is suitable for rice farming because temperatures are always above 20ºC and the rainfall is high.

RURAL GEOGRAPHY

RURAL GEOGRAPHY

Features of the landscapeTerraces on steep

slopes

Oxen used for power

Flooded paddy (padi) field Rice seedlings

planted under water

Labor intensive

Water for irrigation

and fishing

Earth ‘bund’

separates fields

Fruit trees add variety

to diet

Clustered village due to fragmented land ownership