Question

The characteristics of sedentary cultivation is ?
A.The farmers settle down in one particular place
B.Agricultural activity is carried out in one place
C.Crops are raised only for their domestic animals
D.Varieties of crops are grown

Answer 1

Hint:Today, mainly sedentary agriculture is practised in the major parts of the world. When the soil is drained of nutrients, the practitioners have a set acreage that is permanently farmed instead of shifting to new fields. Slash and burn farming is the opposite of sedentary farming, where new land was cleared in the former method by cutting trees and burning the vegetation every few years to plant new crops.

Complete answer:
 Sedentary agriculture is a farming method in which one farmer in a particular area selected by him/her.in this mode of agriculture the fields are not changed according to season. This is also known as the primitive methods because of agriculturists in Africa who continued to cultivate from the same piece of land indefinitely in contrast to shifting cultivation. Sedentary agriculture is mostly practiced in tropical regions in the world. Even though the land remains the same, the crops are rotated and through proper attention and irrigation a good amount of crop is cultivated. Initial stage of this type of farming is the setting up the soil by ploughing and hoeing, done with crude, hand implements. There is more employment of manpower in the fields. Mixed cropping is also adopted in this method in order to achieve more than one crop in a year.

In Eurasia and the Americas, sedentary agriculture has been established independently and they were the first ones to establish it. Sedentary agriculture was practised on the Eurasian continent by 10,000 B.C.E. America was first settled in 20,000 B.C.E and foragers and hunters were the first individuals in America. By 7,000 B.C.E agriculture in South America was also practised. Civilization was enabled to flourish through the advent of sedentary farming on both continents.

Hence, the correct answer is option (B).

Note: In sedentary farming, the crops are generally sown in the cool season which grow throughout the rainy period and are har­vested in the dry season. The crops, like maize, millets, paddy, vegetables, sweet-potatoes, root-crops, banana, tapioca, squash, tobacco, small millets and pulses are grown in this type of agricultural system. In the off season, many sedentary farmers in South America and Southeast Asia find some plantation work and occasionally return their earnings to their homes. Sedentary farming for subsistence in Southeast Asia and West Africa is frequently combined with the production of cash crops or the processing and selling of forest products.