Social Science (087) — CBSE Class 10 board question

Primitive Subsistence Farming:

• Practised on small patches of land using primitive tools like hoe, dao, and digging sticks.
• Depends on monsoon, natural soil fertility, and family/community labour.
• It is a 'slash and burn' agriculture — farmers clear land, grow food crops, and shift when soil fertility decreases, allowing nature to replenish it.
• Land productivity is low as no fertilisers or modern inputs are used.
• Known by different names: Jhumming (North-East), Bewar/Dahiya (M.P.), Podu (Andhra Pradesh), Kumari (Western Ghats).

Commercial Farming:

• Uses high doses of modern inputs — HYV seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides, and pesticides for higher productivity.
• The degree of commercialisation varies by region (e.g., rice is commercial in Punjab/Haryana but subsistence in Odisha).
• Plantation farming is a type of commercial farming where a single crop is grown over large areas using capital-intensive inputs and migrant labour (e.g., tea in Assam, coffee in Karnataka).
• A well-developed transport and communication network is essential for plantations.

Source: Chapter 4 — Agriculture, Types of Farming

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• This is a standard 5-mark question expecting two parts clearly separated with headings.
• Examiners look for 3 points on primitive subsistence (tools/methods, slash-and-burn, low productivity + local names) and 2–3 points on commercial farming (modern inputs, regional variation, plantation as sub-type).
• Always mention examples — regional names for jhum cultivation and plantation crops score marks.
• Avoid writing long paragraphs; bullet points or short sentences are cleaner and easier to mark.