class 9 The story of Village Palampur key points

Dear students
Hope you have made the mind map and picture in your notebooks. 
Today go through the main points discussed in the class. Based on that I will ask you the questions tomorrow. Be ready for oral test. 

Overview

Introduction to some basic concepts related to production through a hypothetical village called Palampur where farming is the main activity. The village also has several other activities such as small scale manufacturing, dairy, transport, etc, carried out on a limited scale.

Introduction

Palampur is fairly connected with a well-developed system of roads, transport, electricity, irrigation, schools and health centres. The story of Palampur takes us through the different types of production activities in the village. In India, farming is the main production activity across villages.

Organisation of Production

The main aim of production is to produce goods and services, which require four essential things.

1. Land and other natural resources such as water, forests, minerals.
2. Labour
3. Physical Capital such as tools, machines, buildings, raw materials and money.

A variety of raw materials are required while production, such as the yarn used by the weaver and clay used by the potter. Money is also essential during production and both of them in hand are called working capital. The fourth requirement is knowledge and enterprise to be able to put together land, labour and physical capital and produce an output. Factors of production are combining of land, labour, physical capital and human capital.

Farming in Palampur

1. Land is fixed

For Palampur, village farming is their main production and the wellbeing of these people is related to production on the farms. But, there is a basic constraint in raising farm production. Land area under cultivation is practically fixed.

2. Is there a way one can grow more from the same land?

In the rainy season, Kharif farmers grow jowar and bajra followed by the cultivation of potato between October and December. In winter, farmers grow wheat and a part of the land is devoted to sugarcane harvested once every year. Due to well-developed irrigation, farmers can grow three different crops. Electricity transformed the system of irrigation. Multiple cropping means to grow more than one crop on a piece of land. Another way for higher yield is modern farming. In the later 1960s, the Green Revolution introduced the Indian farmer to cultivation of wheat and rice using high yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds.

3. Will the land sustain?

Modern farming methods have overused the natural resource base. Due to increased use of chemical fertilisers, soil lost its fertility. Natural resources like soil fertility and groundwater are destroyed and it is very difficult to restore them.

4. How is land distributed between the farmers of Palampur?

Land is important for any kind of farming. In Palampur, about one-third of the 450 families are landless. Dalits have no land for cultivation. 240 families cultivate small plots of land less than 2 hectares in size. In Palampur, there are 60 families of medium and large farmers who cultivate more than 2 hectares of land.