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Crop Trends in the Central Provinces of India, 1861–1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Peter Harnetty
Peter Harnetty
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

In the opening chapter of his study of Agricultural Trends in India, 1891–1947, George Blyn explains the double significance of determining crop production trends in a society where agriculture is the largest single sector of the economy. Firstly, crop trends reveal the nature of changes in production and provide the basis for estimating changes in consumption. Secondly, since availability of crops for consumption depends not only on output but also on foreign trade, changes in cropping patterns provide a basis for estimating the pace and direction of commercialization of the economy. Blyn's study covers the fifty-six years before Indian independence and provides detailed analysis of such topics as aggregate crop trends for the eighteen crops that constituted most of India's agriculture. More recently, there have been a number of studies concerned with the agricultural history of nineteenth-century India. My own work is concerned with the social and economic history of the Central Provinces for the period 1861–1921. Within this broad subject an important specific topic is that of cropping patterns. This paper provides data on crop trends in this part of India for a period of fifty-four years from 1867 to 1921 and evaluates and analyzes this data. Its object is to establish the broad trends in cropping patterns and to shed some light on methods of agriculture in the Central Provinces in the later nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. (Provincial data are given in Tables 1.1 and 1.2 at the end of the paper.)

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 341 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 Blyn, George, Agricultural Trends in India, 1891–1947: Output, Availability, and Productivity (Philadelphia, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The best long study is by Whitcombe, Elizabeth, Agrarian Conditions in India: The United Provinces under British Rule, 1860–1900 (Berkeley, 1972).Google Scholar Short studies include Rajat, and Ray, Ratna, ‘The Dynamics of Continuity in Rural Bengal under the British Imperium: Study of Quasi-Stable Equilibrium in Underdeveloped Societies in a Changing World,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review, X (1973), 103–28.Google Scholar

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4 Note by Fuller, J. B., 13 February 1894, Central Provinces, Agric. Case Files (Madhya Pradesh Central Record Office, Nagpur), 1894, 11/15–22. Of the balance of 12 per cent, two oilseed groups (castor and niger or jagni) accounted for 293,000 acres (1.9%), and fodder crops (chiefly grass) for 248,000 acres (1.6%). Miscellaneous crops classified as not used for human food made up 104,000 acres (0.7%). The greater portion of the balance of 1,217,000 acres (7.8%) was cropped with various pulses: lentils, 237,000 acres (1.5%); pigeon pea (tur or ahar), 136,000 acres (0.9%); other pulses, 321,000 acres (2.1%); vetches, 200,000 acres (1.3%); and 323,000 acres (2.1%) were unclassified.Google Scholar

5 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 3747/177, 28 September 1877. C.P., Letters to the Govt of India (M.P.C.R.O.), 1877.

6 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 3751/210, 2 October 1882. Ibid., 1886.

7 Report on the Land Revenue Settlement of Hoshangabad, by Elliott, C. A., (Nagpur, 1867), p. 82.Google Scholar

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10 Central Provinces, Rev. and Agric. Procs (M.P.C.R.O.), May 1892, no. 3. Wheat prices actually fell in the Central Provinces after 1870 but this was because food grain prices had been artificially inflated during the American Civil War. On this, see Harnetty, Peter, ‘Cotton Exports and Indian Agriculture, 1861–1870,’ Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XXIV (1971), 414–29, esp. Table 5. Wheat prices rose after 1886 as the volume of exports reached record heights.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Central Provinces, Report on Trade and Resources, 1875–1976, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

12 Central Provinces, Report on Railborne Traffic, 1895–1996, p. 2.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 1890–91, pp. 9–10.

14 Ibid., 1894–95, pp. 2.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., 1899–1900, p. 6.

17 Central Provinces, Report on Trade and Resources, 1864–1965, p. 9;Google ScholarReport on Railborne Traffic, 1895–1996, p. 12.Google Scholar

18 Central Provinces, Report on Trade and Resources, 1876–1977, p. 11.Google Scholar

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21 ‘Note on the Policy of Work in the Agriculture Dept.,’ by D. Clouston, Deputy Director of Agric., C.P. Central Provinces, Agric. Case Files (M.P.C.R.O.), 1914/1–4.

22 Central Provinces, Report on Railborne Traffic, 1916–1917, p. 11.Google Scholar

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24 Central Provinces, Report on Railborne Traffic, 1911–1912, p. 7.Google Scholar

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26 Central Provinces, Report on Railborne Traffic, 1895–1996, pp. 1–2, 13.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 1911–12, p. 8.

28 Ibid., 1892–93, p. 9; 1897–98, p. 16.

29 Central Provinces, Report on Trade and Resources, 1866–67, p. 10; 1867–1968, p. 5.Google Scholar

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31 In 1864–1865, at the height of the cotton boom caused by the American Civil War, cotton appears to have constituted 6.9 per cent of the cropped area in the districts for which cultivation figures were available. Central Provinces, Administration Report, 1866–1967, p. 82. This proportion seems reasonable in the light of cotton cultivation trends in the 1860s in all parts of India, discussed in my article cited in note 10 above.Google Scholar

32 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 4741A/278, 23 December 1882. Central Provinces, Rev. and Agric (Trade) Procs (M.P.C.R.O.), nos 1 and 2, 23 December 1882.

33 Director of Agric., C.P., to Chief Commissioner, C.P., no. 25A, 10 August 1883. Central Provinces, Rev. and Agric. (Agric. and Hortic.) Procs (M.P.C.R.O.), nos 1–2, 26 September 1883.

34 Central Provinces, Land Revenue Administration Report, 1893–1994, p. 4.Google Scholar

35 Director of Agric., C.P., to Chief Commissioner, C.P., no. 376, 2 February 1907. Central Provinces, Agric, Case Files (M.P.C.R.O.), 1907, 4–5.

36 Ibid.

37 ‘Note on the Policy of Work in the Agriculture Dept,’ by Clauston, D., Deputy Director of Agric., C.P., n.d. Central Provinces, Agric. Case Files (M.P.C.R.O.), 1914/1–4.Google Scholar

38 In 1913 there were 120 seed farms in six districts; they averaged 10 to 15 acres in size. The seed for these farms was supplied each year from government experimental farms at a price 2¼ times higher than the bazaar rates for ordinary factoryginned mixed cotton seed. The owners of these seed farms were ready to pay the higher price because the cotton grown from the pure jari seed gave an outturn one-sixth greater and had a higher ginning percentage. As a result, the cultivators paid a higher price to buy seed from the owners of the seed farms. Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. C-28, 27 April 1913. Ibid., 1913/4–3.

39 Central Provinces, Report on Railborne Traffic, 1895–1996, p. 2.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., 1897–98, p. 3.

41 Ibid., 1897–98, p. 13; 1900–01, p. 6; 1916–17, p. 1.

42 Ibid., 1902–03, p. 6.

43 Ibid., 1911–12, p. 6.

44 Ibid., 1915–16, p. 4.

45 Ibid., 1901–02, p. 8.

46 ‘Forecast Report on the Nagpur Settlement,’ Central Provinces, Survey and Settlement Case Files (M.P.C.R.O.), 1/268 (1911), 4–197.

47 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 256–xi–4–114, 1 April 1911. Ibid., 268/26 (1911), 4–114/64–68.

48 Low, C. E., Memorandum on the Condition of the People (1912), p. 4.Google Scholar

page 369 note 1 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 4659/136, 27 December 1875. Central Provinces, Rev., Agric., and Commerce Procs (M.P.C.R.O.), December 1875, no. 7.

page 369 note 2 Chief Commissioner, C.P., to Govt of India, no. 4658/114, 27 December 1875. Ibid., no. 6.

page 370 note 3 Note by Fuller, J. B., Director of Agriculture, C.P., 17 February 1884. Central Provinces, Rev. Dept (Agric.) Compilations (M.P.C.R.O.), 188–89/Q.Google Scholar

page 370 note 4 In 1892 Fuller recalculated the cultivation figures for the Central Provinces for 1867–68 based on a careful study of the early Settlement Reports and in the light of the resurvey and measurement of the land in the 1880s prior to the second revenue settlement operations. See Review of the Progress of the Central Provinces during the Past 30 Years and of the Present and Past Condition of the People, by Fuller, J. B. (Nagpur, 1892), pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

page 370 note 5 See Blyn, Agricultural Trends, pp. 39–40, 42. I should point out that those who compare my cultivation figures for the Central Provinces with those given by Blyn in his Appendix Tables will notice that they do not agree. This is because Blyn has in every case included the crop returns for Berar under the heading ‘Central Provinces,’ although Berar was not administered as part of the Central Provinces until 1902. Even then it was called ‘Central Provinces and Berar’ and cultivation statistics for Berar continued to be given separately in the Statistical Abstract. Since Berar was a totally separate administrative jurisdiction for forty of the sixty years with which I am concerned, I saw no reason to complicate an already difficult task by trying to gather Berar statistics for the period before 1902. I noticed that by deducting the Berar figures from those given in Blyn's tables from 1891–92 to 1899–1900 for wheat, rice, jowar, gram, and cotton, his figures and mine agreed.Google Scholar