By: Hannah Yao
Agricultural Production
College Board Themes:
1. Interactions Between Human and the Environment- In the post classical India, people had to rely on monsoons to help with the agricultural yields. Some of the months did not bring enough water to help produce crops so, people had to regulate monsoon patterns to assist in supplying the irrigation systems.
2. Creation, Expansion, & Interaction of Economic Systems- People in India had to improvise their agricultural techniques by using monsoon patterns and irrigation systems which created a successful economic growth. Not only did this lead to the expansion of economic systems but also population growth and urbanization.
1. Interactions Between Human and the Environment- In the post classical India, people had to rely on monsoons to help with the agricultural yields. Some of the months did not bring enough water to help produce crops so, people had to regulate monsoon patterns to assist in supplying the irrigation systems.
2. Creation, Expansion, & Interaction of Economic Systems- People in India had to improvise their agricultural techniques by using monsoon patterns and irrigation systems which created a successful economic growth. Not only did this lead to the expansion of economic systems but also population growth and urbanization.
Monsoons
irrigation systems
Population growth
Urbanization
- In the Mediterranean, southwest Asia, and Chinese societies, agricultural yields increased significantly in post classical India.
- It enabled large numbers of people to devote themselves to trade and manufacturing rather than the production of food.
- Due to the patterns of the monsoons, irrigation was important for the maintenance of a large, densely populated, agricultural society.
- During the spring and summer months, there was warm and lots of moisture, that brought an abundance amount of India's rainfall
- During the Autumn and Winter months, cool and very dry winds blew from the northeast causing very little rainfall
- To achieve their agricultural potential, Indian lands required a good amount of watering by the southern monsoons, which eventually had to supply irrigation during the dry months.
- If there was light rain monthly, it led to drought, very little harvests, and widespread hunger.
irrigation systems
- Irrigation systems led to significant agricultural productivity
- In northern India, irrigation had been a fixture of the countryside since Harappan times, when cultivators tapped the waters of the Indus River.
- Aryan's migrated towards the Ganges river valley, where there was abundant opportunities to build irrigation systems
- Most of southern India is an arid land without rivers like the Indus and Ganges that can serve as sources for for large-scale irrigation.
- Southern India became more densely populated, so irrigation systems became more important.
- An immensely amount of effort went into the large constructions of waterworks.
- Dams, reservoirs, canals, wells, and tunnels appeared in large numbers
- Monumental reservoirs typically lined with brick or stone captured the runs of the spring and summer months water and held the water until the dry season. Canals would then carry them to thirsty fields.
Population growth
- As a result of the increased productivity, India's population grew steadily.
- 600 CE, the subcontinental population stood at 53 million.
- By 800 it had increased 20 percent to 64 million
- By 1000 it had grown by almost another 25 percent to 79 million.
- Eventually the population had reached 105 million people
Urbanization
- The demographic surge encouraged the concentration of people in cities.
- During the the fourteenth century, Delhi, the capital city, had a population of about four hundred thousand (which made it second only to Cairo among Muslims cities.)
- Many cities with ports and trading centers like Cambay, Surat, Calicut Quilon, and Masulipatam had population well over one hundred thousand
- Cities in Southern india grew execptionally fast, partly as a result increasing agricultural productivity in the region.