Subsistence rice farming in the lower Ganges Valley

River GangesThis river flows south eastwards from the

Himalayas. The Alluvium from the mountains are deposited everywhere. These areas are one of the most populated areas in the world. Many people who live here are subsistence farmers. They mainly grow rice. Despite their hard work they can only produce enough for their family and maybe village. Rice which has a high nutritional value can form over ¾ of their total local diet and is a sustainable form of farming.

Physical InputA wet padi, a variety of rice and rich soil is

needed. It grows on the silts of the Ganges river. This part of India and Bangladesh has high temperatures like 210 and more throughout the year. the growing season is throughout the year. rice is initially grown in nurseries and are transplanted after the monsoon rains floods the padi. During the dry season when there is insufficient water vegetables or cereal crops are grown.

Human InputsRice growing is labour intensive. Lots of

manual effort is needed for the construction of the bunds around the padi, irrigation canals, preparing the field, to plant, weed and harvest the crop. Many farms are small. The small land and the poverty of the farmer means that hand labour is more. Water buffalo provide manure and are used in preparing the padi fields.

ProcessesPlanting rice in nursery, ploughing and

transplanting rice into padi field, harvesting rice, planting winter wheat, harvesting wheat, growing vegetables, looking after chickens are the main processes.

OutputsRice and some wheat, vegetables, chickens (egg/meat).

Recent changesLand reform Green Revolutions and

HYVsMany farms are very small and

broken up in tiny plots that are spread over a wide space. This makes efficient farming difficult. Most poor farmers have no land and live in poverty. In contrast the few wealthy people own much of the farm land. The three aims of land reform to increase farm size for those with little land, to give any surplus land to the landless, and set an upper limit to the amount of land that a wealthy family can own.

Green Revolution refers to the applications of modern farming systems. It began with the development of high yielding varieties. Even though the new seeds are faster growing and resistant to diseases they needed a lot of pesticides and fertilizers making farming sustainable.

Recent changesAppropriate technology.

In the Ganges Basin this includes the building of simple, easy to build, easy to maintain water pumps, projects that use human labour rather than machines such as tractors, low-cost irrigation schemes instead of building large dams, and the use of animal manure than chemical fertilizers. Such schemes are said to be sustainable because they are affordable and help to improve peoples standard of living and quality of life without damaging the environment.