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PKODUCTION OF FOOJ) GRAINS IN INDIA. [Dec, 1894, 



VIII— PRODUCTION OF FOOD GRAINS IN INDIA. 



The Board of Agriculture have received from the India Office 

 a copy of a memorandum on the resources of British India, 

 prepared by JVIr. Geo. Watt, CLE., the reporter on econoinic 

 products to the Government of India. 



In this memornndum it is stated that the food producing 

 capacity of India and the necessities of home consumption, are 

 questions involved in the very greatest confusion and obscurity. 

 The Famine Commission of 1878 endeavoured to deal with them, 

 and although considerable progress has been made in the 

 method of collection and publication of agricultural statistics, it 

 is still impossible to speak with any degree of certainty on the 

 food supply and the requirements of India. That this should be 

 so will at once be apparent when the vast extent of the Indian 

 Empire is borne in mind, in conjunction with two facts, viz., the 

 very large tracts of the Empire administered by native princes, 

 who furnish practically no returns regarding the agricultural 

 condition of their States, and the extensive areas of the British 

 provinces that have not as yet been cadastrally surveyed. So 

 far as can be estimated, the area of actual cultivation, in 

 the twelve months ended March 31, 1892, was 187,795,210 

 acres, and from about one eighth of that area two crops were 

 obtained in the year. Of the cultivated area (including double 

 cropping) 180,784,563 acres were devoted to food crops, and 

 the estimated yield of food materials from that area, based on 

 the figure of average acreage yield adopted by the Famine Com- 

 missioners, is put at 57,215,000 tons. 



The area of British India is roughly about 699 million acres 

 which supports a population of, say, 221^ millions. A figure 

 might be worked out (from the estimated production of 

 57,215,000 tons of food materials and the 221^ millions of popu- 

 lation) to express the supply available per head, and thus to 

 show whether or not a natural surplus might be assumed to 

 exist over and above the necessities of the population. But no 

 such calculation could, it appears, be seriously advanced. It 

 would ignore feven in the accurately surveyed areas of British 

 India) many factors of vital importance. Among these may be 

 mentioned : — (a.) The error incident to the adoption of any 

 standard of yield as applicable to all food crops ; (h) imports 

 and exports, both internal and external ; (c) wild food stuffs, 

 which constitute a substantial source of supply, more particularly 

 among the hill tribes ; and (d) animal food materials — especially 

 fish. In other wor<]s, it would be unsafe to assume that the 

 people of India nowadays live exclusively upon the produce of 

 their own fields, as it would be misleading to suppose that they 



