AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION

AGRICULTURAL SEASONS

Had it not been for the natural asset of an adequate rainfall with which the district has been endowed, the country would be nothing but a dry and barren piece of land. With the distribution of wells useful for irrigation purposes, numbering in the neighbourhood of four thousand over the entire country, it be- comes obvious that the district is ill-equipped with irrigation facilities. This is amply proved by the fact that the net area irrigated in the district accounts for not even one per cent of the total net area sown in it. Naturally, the cultivated land in the district singles out in a jirayat or dry crop category, its further classification being subject to the pattern of crops vis-a-vis the monsoons. Thus, the early monsoon crops are called kharif and the late monsoon crops rabi. Whereas the former are taken by rains from the south-west monsoons, the latter are grown with the help of irrigation and occasional fair weather showers due in November. Kharif season opens up roundabout June-July and ends in September-October, though occasionally it also receives rains from ante-monsoon showers in May. Kharif crops are sown from the first week of June to mid-July and. reaped in mid-September and sometimes up to the end of November, while rubi crops are generally sown in November and reaped in March. The latter are taken in low-lying areas where water is available from within the sub-soil. No line can be drawn between kharif and rabi crops. However, broadly speaking, crops grown in the kharif season and known as kharif crops can be said to comprise, in the main part, cereals such as bhat (paddy), nagali or nachani (ragi), and vari, while those taken in the rabi season and known as rabi crops can be said to include pulses like val (green gram), udid (black gram) and tur among others.

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