The main crop grown in India is rice, subsistence cropSubsistence farming -food grown to feed the family, no surplus remaining to sell for a profit.

Rice growing requires: • Warm, wet climate perfect • heavy rainfall (during the Monsoon rains from

May to September) • temperatures above 24°C all year.

These farms require lots of manual labour, have very small field sizes

little or no technology: farmers cannot afford high-tech equipment

Most farms are small and family run. plots often scattered around the villageuse oxen to plough the fields, manual labour to harvest the crop. Soil bunds are walls built to retain the water in the flooded paddy fields also needs to be a source of water ( eg, nearby river or stream.

Click here: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/audioslideshow/2013/feb/15/india-rice-revolution-audio-slideshow)

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New rice crop types

Irrigation, pumps

pesticides

weed killers

fertilisersLand reform

New roads,

electricity

Bank loans for

poor farmers

millions of people migrating to towns and cities in search of jobs that don't exist, because the mills are closed, the factories are shut, and hundreds of thousands of units have wound up.

The 1968 Green Revolution saw annual wheat production rise from 10 million tonnes to 17 million virtually overnight, and continue to increase to a point where it now stands at 73 million tonnes.

the Indian government is seeking to import three and a half million tonnes of wheat this year, to boost dwindling reserves

"We don't get anything out of wheat or rice, but we get good prices for mushroom," said one farmer who has switched from growing wheat.

The water level has gone down - we don't get enough water to irrigate the fields,"

Now, farmers are opting for mushrooms and sweet corn

•Farming becomes more efficient (1). •Machines allow work to be done more quickly (1). •Machines also make the work easier (1). •Increase in the amount of crop produced (1) and •also the quality (1). •Possibility of growing two crops or more each year (1).

•Some farmers cannot afford the new machines etc (1). •Increased use of machines may lead to unemployment in rural areas (1); •may result in rural depopulation (1). •Increased use of fertilisers could ruin the soil in the long term (1)•and may also result in river pollution (1).