Agriculture in India
Crops and fields:
In India most of the people are farmers.
The main crops in India are:
Rice, Wheat, millet, peanuts, bananas, cotton, coffee, jute, sugar cane. Now you can see some pictures of these crops:
The farmers who grow these crops have their own fields so they get their money. But mostly the fields are far away from the village. Because of the water situation the farmers can only irrigate a few fields. To get more water, they build dams to reserve the water. But one impotant thing is that the fields can only be irrigated 3 months after the monsoon. And they have to put the harvest in the sun to get dry.
The Farmers:
The farmers mostly have a big family so they have a big pressure to feed the family. The farmers must work hard and all day to get a cheap price, because the companies that buy the harvest only buy the cheapest. Most of the farmers leave agriculture because they get less money. They think they get more money in the iron or steel industry. Or some other farmers export leather of the cows to get more money. One other idea is to till their fields by building pipelines for the irrigation, with a tractor or other farm machines (not every farmer has a farm machine). Or when the farmers have no farm machines they use their goats and bullocks, but they can't eat them because of religious reasons.
The life in a village:
In a normal village there live about 1000 people. Most of these people are very poor. The houses where they live in are made of wood, mud and straw. The wells are mostly dry so they have pipelines to bring the water that is far away from the village to them. The families in the villages are very big and they have a lot of animals. The people often become ill because the water is infested and because of the dirt that is in the streets.
The monsoon: a blessing and a curse
First, the statement that the monsoon is a blessing: The monsoon brings water for the wells and dams, fields and pipelines. The dirty air becomes clean because of the rain. The rain makes the temperatures decrease. The hard soil of the fields becomes soft. And when the soil is soft the farmers can plant the fields again
Second, the statement that the monsoon is a curse: The monsoon destroys the houses which are made of mud and the fields. The rain washes off the good soil of the fields. The cars are destroyed and washed away.
