A history student is reading seventeenth-century accounts of farming in western India. She finds village fields that carry the old staple crops beside a crop that had reached India only recently, by a long route across two continents. The records also show villages clearing fresh land and adding new crops year after year, so that the area under the plough kept growing. She writes down two questions for her teacher: which newly arrived crop had become a major crop of the region, and whose effort lay behind this growth of farming.
Which crop, introduced into India via Africa and Spain, had become one of the major crops of western India by the seventeenth century?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Maize (makka)
Option (1) Chillies — Incorrect. Chillies too came from the New World at this time. They belong with the new vegetables of the period.
Option (2) Potatoes — Incorrect. Potatoes were also a new arrival of this period. They came from the New World as a vegetable.
Option (3) Maize (makka) — Correct. Maize, called makka, came into India through Africa and Spain. By the seventeenth century it was counted among the major crops of western India.
Option (4) Tomatoes — Incorrect. Tomatoes were another New World vegetable of this period. They reached India by a different route.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.4 An abundance of crops … |