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GENERAL ECONOMIC SURVEY
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AGRICULTURE
Agriculture was the main source of livelihood to 9,28,265 persons or about 75.46 per cent, of the total population in 1951. This includes self-supporting persons as also earning and non-earning dependents. Out of these as many as 6,63,073 worked on their own farms and 1,54,023 were tenant cultivators.
The total area of Kolhapur district was 17,39,619 acres in 1955-56 of which 9,69,058 acres were under the plough, 1,07,879 acres were barren and uncultivable waste land and 1,64,549 acres were culturable waste. Nearly 58 per cent, of the total cultivated area was in the eastern plains, mainly in the talukas of Gadhinglaj, Hatkanangale, Kagal. Karveer and Shirol. The proportion of cultivated area varied from taluka to taluka. The highest proportion (89.2) was in Kagal and the lowest (20.7) was in Bavada.
Of the cultivated land jirayat formed 93 per cent, of the total cultivated area in 1955-56; the rest of the area is baggayat land cropped with the help of irrigation. In the same year forest occupied, about 11 per cent, of the total geographical area or nearly 40 per cent, of the total uncultivated area of the district.
The main food crops of the district are rice, jowar, ragi, varai, sava, bajari, maize, and wheat. Among the cereals tur, horse-gram, gram, black-gram, vatana and mug are important. Ground-nut and nigar are important among oil-seeds; tobacco among drugs and narcotics; chillies among condiments and spices; cotton among the fibre crops and sugar-cane among sugar crops.
Since the last Gazetteer was published (1886) the crop-pattern has undergone various changes. The proportion of land under cereals, which was 70 in 1881-82, has gone down by about 20 per cent. Among the cereals the area under rice has increased by about 22 per cent; while that under jowar declined by about 20 per cent.
The area under oil seeds, edible and non-edible, shot up to 1,18,653 acres in 1955-56 from 34,175 in 1881-82. The most pronounced increase is in the area under groundnut. It increased from 27,543 acres in the year 1881-82 to 1,13,978 acres in 1955-56. In 1881-82, the acreage under tobacco was 10,193. It shot up to 36,100 in 1955-56. The percentage of gross irrigated area to total cultivated area came to 7.2 in 1955-56. Of the 66,779 irrigated acres of land, 1,593 acres were irrigated more than once. Sugarcane occupied 72 per cent, of the total irrigated area, food crops occupied 20 per cent., and the rest was occupied by non-food crops.
As compared with the other districts of the Deccan, Kolhapur, with the moderate rainfall that it enjoys and with its rich land especially in the valleys of Dudhaganga, Krishna, Varna and Panchaganga, is more or less free from famine. No famine of a serious nature is reported to have occurred in this area during the present century.
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