Intensive Farming, Meaning, Characteristics, Advantages & Disadvantages

Intensive Farming

Intensive farming is a type of agriculture where many crops are grown on a small piece of land using a lot of labor. Farmers add fertilizers and pesticides to produce high quality crops and improve soil quality. This method involves using a lot of pesticides, fertilizers, and other inputs to grow crops. It helps farmers increase agricultural production. Intensive farming is a modern technique that boosts yield and productivity, aiming to get the most output from a specific area of land.

Intensive Farming is so intensive that double-cropping or triple-cropping is practised. Several crops are grown on the same piece of land for a year in this farming. Very smallholdings and fragmented lands are the characteristic features of this type of cultivation.

Read More: Extensive Farming

Intensive Farming Examples of Crops Grown

Here are some examples of crops that are commonly grown using intensive farming methods:

• Wheat
• Rice
• Corn
• Soybeans
• Vegetables etc.

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Intensive Farming Areas of Practice

This type of farming is most advanced and basically found in the monsoon regions of Asia. It is practiced in countries like China, India, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and parts of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Java, Sumatra, and Malaysia. These areas also have the highest population densities in the world, making efficient farming practices crucial for feeding large populations.

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Techniques of Intensive Farming

Factory Farming: This method involves raising animals like cows, pigs, and chickens in confined spaces for meat, milk, and eggs. The animals are kept in cages or crates, which can lead to poor living conditions and shorter lifespans.

Aquaculture: This is the farming of fish, algae, shellfish, and other aquatic plants and animals. It involves breeding, raising, and harvesting these organisms in controlled environments to ensure high productivity.

Livestock Farming: Intensive farming is used to raise livestock efficiently. Animals are kept in small enclosures with controlled temperatures to maximize their size and yield. They are often given antibiotics to prevent diseases.

Crop Farming: This method uses advanced technology and techniques to grow large quantities of crops. It includes using fertilizers and pesticides to boost productivity. Mono-cropping, where the same crop is grown repeatedly on the same land, is also a part of this method.

Intensive Farming Characteristics

Intensive farming is characterized by:

• The very small landholding is one of the significant characteristics of this type of farming. It is because of the high population density and limited supply of labour.
• Intensive farming is labour-intensive agriculture and is practised in regions of dense population.
• It is found in developing countries of south-east Asia, where agriculture is the mainstay of the population.
• In this type of farming, the use of maximum labour, fertilisers, and high-yielding seeds are used to grow more and more crops and preserve the land’s fertility.
• Intensive farming brings about the highest yield per hectare.
• The per capita production of crops is low due to the heavy pressure of the population on the land.
• Cultivation is practised with the aid of irrigation where it is necessary.
• Intensive farming is well developed in areas where the physical environment for crop production is highly conducive.
• Due to heavy pressure on the land, emphasis is given to food crop production, such as rice, wheat, etc.
• Other crops of high cash value, such as jute, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, and oilseed, are also raised. They form an important part of this type of farming;
• Intensive farmings also show the characteristics of mixed farming as it raises livestock and animals together with crop production.

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Intensive Farming Advantages

• It presents the highest yield per hectarė.
• A wide variety of crops are raised.
• Both food crops and cash crops are grown. Hence, marginal profits increase.
• Gives Affordable prices of food

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Intensive Farming Disadvantages

• The cost of cultivation is high; because it requires irrigation, manure, fertilizers, and high-yielding seeds.
• Intensive farming may pose problems like soil erosion and soil exhaustion.

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Intensive Farming and Subsistence Farming

Intensive farming and subsistence farming are two very different types of agricultural practices that have different goals, inputs, and methods.

Intensive Rice Farming in South-East Asia

Rice is the principal foodgrain of the Tropical Monsoon region. There are various reasons for the concentration-intensive rice (paddy) farming in South-East Asia. It is grown in the following geographical environment:

Physical Conditions

• Climatic Conditions: Rice thrives best under the tropical monsoon’s hot and moist climatic conditions.
  • Rainfall: It requires plenty of rain. The region gets rainfall between 150 cm to 200 cm and is most favourable for rice cultivation. From the time of planting, rice needs rainfall; heavy rainfall is also required during its growing period.
  • Temperature: Rice cultivation requires hot weather ranging between 16°C and 27°C. It needs an average temperature of 22°C.
  • Other climatic conditions: Moist weather favours the growth of rice. A dry and sunny climate is necessary during the ripening period and harvesting season. Rainfall during this period is harmful to crops.
• Soil Condition: Rice grows best on fertile alluvial soil. The alluvial soil of river valleys and deltas is very much suitable for rice cultivation. It grows on a wide variety of soils, but alluvial loam with clayey subsoil is ideal because the clay-like impermeable sub-soil holds water in the field.
• Nature of the land: Fertile-level plains are ideal for rice cultivation. Water can easily stand on lowlands, and rice thrives best in the water-logged area,s, particularly during its growing season, and that is why rice is produced on low-lying plains, valleys, and deltaic plains. Rice is also grown on step-wise terraces on hilly slopes.

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Socio-Economic Conditions

• Supply of Labour: Rice cultivation requires an abundant supply of cheap labour as it cannot be cultivated only with the aid of machines. Tractors can be used for tilling the land, but other works, such as transplanting, weeding, cutting, harvesting, boiling, drying, husking, etc., have to be carried out with hands. In these works, the machine is not useful. Therefore, rice is generally cultivated in densely populated areas.
• Supply of Capital: At present, agriculture has become a capital-intensive industry. Rice cultivation requires an abundant supply of chemical fertilizer, manure, high-yielding seed, irrigation facilities, insecticides, and pesticides.
• Demand & Market: Rice is produced in regions where it is the staple food of the people. It is more popular than other cereals, and hence it has heavy demand. Therefore, people prefer to cultivate rice.

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Intensive Farming UPSC

A sunny environment and fertile soil are necessary for intensive subsistence farming in order to cultivate more than one crop every year on the same plot. It is common in densely populated portions of Asia’s monsoon zones, particularly in the south, southeast, and east. Rice is the principal crop raised. Wheat, maize, lentils, and oilseeds are also farmed in addition to rice. There are two different types of intensive subsistence agriculture: wet paddy cultivation-dominated intensive subsistence agriculture and crop-dominated intensive subsistence agriculture.

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