While food crops sustain life, cash crops sustain the economy. These are the crops primarily grown for commercial purposes—sold in the market rather than consumed directly by the farmer. Their contribution to India’s agricultural GDP is significantly high despite occupying a smaller share of cultivated land.
Cash crops are grown for sale and industrial use rather than for direct consumption. Examples include cotton, jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and oilseeds.
Though they occupy only about 15% of the total cropped area, they contribute to over 40% of the total agricultural output by value—demonstrating their high economic return per hectare.
These crops are vital to India’s exports, raw material supply for industries (like textiles, sugar, and oil), and livelihood for millions of farmers engaged in commercial farming.
The production and prices of cash crops are often influenced by global market trends, government policies, and industrial demand.
They also play a key role in crop diversification and rural employment generation, especially in regions with agro-climatic advantages.
In the upcoming sections, we will explore these cash crops in detail—understanding their agro-climatic requirements, leading producing states, economic significance, and the policy frameworks that govern them.
State wise production list 2022-23 for major Cash Crops.
Most of us think there are seven continents. But what if we told you there’s an eighth—almost the size of Australia—hiding beneath the ocean? Welcome to Zealandia: a submerged microcontinent that’s largely underwater but geologically distinct and continental in nature. 🌍 What is Zealandia? 🧠 Think of it as a huge landmass that just dipped…
Volcanoes are not randomly scattered across the Earth. Instead, they are closely linked to weaker zones of the Earth’s crust, where tectonic activity is high. They often occur near plate boundaries and are associated with earthquakes. 🔥 The Three Major Volcanic Belts 1️⃣ Circum-Pacific Belt – The Ring of Fire 🔥🌊 📍 Location: Encircling the…
Let’s say you are standing in the middle of a vast desert, under the blazing sun. The air is hot, and strong winds are constantly brushing past you, carrying tiny sand particles. Over thousands of years, these sand particles have sculpted some of the most fascinating and dramatic landforms you can imagine. Today, we’ll take…
Imagine yourself standing in the middle of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan. The sun is blazing, the air is dry, and the only thing that seems to have life is the strong wind blowing continuously across the barren landscape. This wind, seemingly invisible but immensely powerful, is one of the most dominant forces that shape…
Suppose you are standing on a beach, watching the waves roll in. Some waves crash directly, while others bounce off obstacles before reaching the shore. Now, scale this up to an oceanic level—that’s how tides behave, according to William Whewell’s Progressive Wave Theory (1883). Unlike Newton’s Equilibrium Theory, which assumes an ideal, water-covered Earth, Whewell…
William Morris Davis, the father of geomorphology, introduced a fascinating theory—the Geographical Cycle of Erosion, also called the Cycle of Erosion. According to Davis landforms undergo sequential changes through time (passing through three stages of youth, mature and old). Over time, the battle between these two forces leads to a systematic transformation of landforms through…
