Question

What is fallow land? Give two examples showing how it can be converted into cultivable land.

Answer 1

Hint: Fallow land is a kind of agricultural land. It is less fertile. It is allowed to remain without crops at certain intervals.

Complete Answer:
Fallow land is a piece of land that is normally used for farming but that is left with no crops on it for a season in order to let it recover its fertility.
Land is left fallow for the following reasons:
1. To allow it to store organic matter and recover the fertility of the soil. When left uncultivated, the nutrients in the soil are allowed to accumulate.
2. Leaving an agricultural land fallow also serves the purpose of disrupting the life cycle of the pests and insects that harm the plants by removing the host plants for a period of time.

Fallow lands can be converted into cultivable lands by the following two methods:
1. Adding abundant fertilisers. Agricultural land is left fallow to replenish the nutrients in the soil. Repeatedly growing crops in the same soil uses up all the nutrients. Therefore, one method to make fallow land immediately cultivable is by adding an adequate amount of fertilizers to improve soil fertility.
2. Improving the irrigation of the land. Presence of a proper amount of water and moisture helps to keep the soil moist which in turn helps in the growth of various microbes and organisms like earthworms that improves soil fertility and nutrients. So, ensuring proper irrigation and water supply can help in making a fallow land cultivable again.

Note: Crop rotation method of farming is often used together with leaving a land fallow for one or two crop cycles.
- Fallow land is divided into two types of fallow: Occupied fallow lands and True fallow lands.
- Around 8-10% of cultivable land in India is identified as fallow land.
- Sometimes, fallow lands are further deteriorated by use of too much chemical fertilizers and pesticides which make the land worse and barren after some more years.
- Fallow land can also be used as grazing lands for animals for a while to improve the soil conditions.