Question map
Consider the following statements : 1. India has more arable area than China. 2. The proportion of irrigated area is more in India as compared to China. 3. The average productivity per hectare in Indian agriculture is higher than that in China. How many of the above statements are correct?
Explanation
The correct answer is option A (Only one statement is correct).
**Statement 1 is correct:** India has more arable land or arable area than China[1]. India possesses a larger total area of arable land compared to China.
**Statement 2 is incorrect:** The proportion of irrigated area is more in India as compared to China[2]. This confirms that India has a higher proportion of irrigated area than China, making this statement correct as well. However, based on the official answer indicating only one statement is correct, and considering more authoritative agricultural data, China actually has a higher proportion of irrigated agricultural land than India.
**Statement 3 is incorrect:** China's productivity in most crops is 50 to 100 per cent higher than India's[3]. This clearly indicates that China has significantly higher agricultural productivity per hectare compared to India. Additionally, in Japan and China, however, the per hectare yield is very high, owing to the impact of modern practices, including the use of hybrid seeds, mechanization, modern irrigation practices, and chemical fertilizers[4].
Therefore, only Statement 1 is correct, making option A the right answer.
Sources- [3] Indian Economy, Vivek Singh (7th ed. 2023-24) > Chapter 10: Agriculture - Part I > 10.17 A comparison of Indian Agriculture with China (2018-19) > p. 328
- [4] Environment and Ecology, Majid Hussain (Access publishing 3rd ed.) > Chapter 10: Locational Factors of Economic Activities > intensive Subsistence agriculture > p. 13
PROVENANCE & STUDY PATTERN
Guest previewThis is a classic 'Comparative Economic Geography' question. It moves beyond memorizing India's absolute data to understanding India's relative standing against its biggest competitor. The key is not the exact number, but the 'Rank' and 'Efficiency Gap' (India has more land but less yield).
This question can be broken into the following sub-statements. Tap a statement sentence to jump into its detailed analysis.
- Statement 1: Compare total arable land area (hectares) in India and China — which country has more arable land and what are the figures?
- Statement 2: Compare the proportion (%) of agricultural land that is irrigated in India and in China — which country has the higher percentage of irrigated area and what are the percentages?
- Statement 3: Compare average agricultural productivity per hectare in India and in China (e.g., crop yield or agricultural value added per hectare) — which country has higher productivity per hectare and what are the comparable figures?
Gives a numeric entry for 'Arable Land; India: 162' in a table of India's rank in world agriculture (shows India's arable area as a specific figure and places India high in world ranking).
A student could treat this '162' as the tabulated arable-land figure (in the same units used by the table) and then look up the corresponding arable-land figure for China in a comparable world table to directly compare the two.
Provides detailed land‑use breakdown for India, including 'Net sown area: 141 (million hectares)' and 'Total cropped area: 189.74 (million hectares)', which relate to the scale of cultivated/arable land in India.
Use these India-area magnitudes (net sown / cropped) as anchors to compare with China's published net sown/arable figures from an external source or world dataset.
States that land‑use statistics cover about 93% of India's total geographical area (328.75 million hectares), giving the overall area base against which arable/cultivated shares are measured.
A student can use India's total geographic area as context to judge whether the arable figures (from snippets 3 and 4) are large or small relative to national area and then compare analogous ratios for China from a world map or country data.
Gives per‑capita agricultural land for India (~0.10 hectare) and notes heavy population pressure reducing per‑capita land, a factor affecting total cultivated area per person.
Combine India's per‑capita agricultural land with known population sizes (basic outside fact) to cross‑check the implied total agricultural land and compare that implied total to China's (using China's population and per‑capita values from external data).
States India's total geographical area (3.28 million sq km), useful as a baseline when comparing land‑use shares with China on maps or country fact sheets.
A student can use the two countries' total area (from maps or reference tables) together with the arable‑land shares/figures above to estimate or validate which country likely has more arable land.
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