What was not the major factor that accounted for the constant expansion of agriculture during sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries in India?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Presence of farms
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries agriculture kept expanding in Mughal India. The abundance of land, available labour and the mobility of peasants were the three factors that accounted for this constant expansion. Land was plentiful, there were hands to work it, and peasants could move to new land when conditions in their village became hard.
‘Presence of farms’ is not one of these factors. It is not a cause of expansion at all; it only describes what already existed.
NCERT (2025-26): “1.3 Irrigation and technology … The abundance of land, available labour and the mobility of peasants were three factors that accounted for the constant expansion of agriculture. Since the primary purpose of agriculture is to feed people, basic staples such as rice, wheat or millets were the most frequently cultivated crops. Areas which received 40 inches or more of rainfall a year were generally rice-producing zones, followed by wheat and millets, corresponding to a descending scale of precipitation.…” |