Crops and farming in UPSC Prelims: 27 questions on what a practice or scheme really does
UPSC asked about crops, farming practices or farm schemes in 10 of the last 11 Prelims papers. What those 27 questions test, the overstated statement that sets most traps, and a plan built on them.
Agriculture looks like a current-affairs topic: new schemes and new numbers every budget. The past papers point elsewhere. They ask what a farming practice achieves, what a crop needs, or what a scheme actually covers. The wrong statement is often a real benefit stretched one step too far.
This post looks at the 15 questions on farming practices and the 12 on farm schemes asked from 2016 to 2026, and turns them into a plan.
What the numbers say
Three things stand out.
Together, they almost never skip a year. Ten of the 11 papers had at least one question from these two areas. Only 2024 had none. Farm schemes on their own were asked in 9 of the 11 papers, which makes them a must-do area.
2020 was the peak. That paper had 7: 5 on practices, all between questions 83 and 94, and 2 on schemes.
| Year | Practices | Schemes | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 2017 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 2018 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2019 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2020 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| 2021 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 2022 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2023 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 15 | 12 | 27 |
The practice questions have gone quiet. None came in 2024, 2025 or 2026. The 2025 and 2026 questions were both on schemes. And only 4 of the 27 were single-answer questions; the rest gave statements or items to judge.
What UPSC is really testing
By our count, the 15 practice questions fall into four groups:
- What a practice achieves: 6 questions. Neem-coated urea, drip irrigation, water conservation, zero tillage, fertigation and the System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
- Facts about a crop: 5. Pulses, sugarcane, palm oil, niger and the least water-efficient crop.
- Soils and fertilisers: 2. Soil properties, and how fertilisers are made and priced.
- How farming is organised: 2. India’s farmland against China’s, and ‘Small Farmer Large Field’.
And the 12 scheme questions fall into three:
- What the scheme covers: 7. PM Fasal Bima Yojana, the millets initiative INSIMP, e-NAM, the Soil Health Card, the Kisan Credit Card, the Rashtriya Gokul Mission and Rainfed Area Development.
- Who runs it: 3. The organic farming programme NPOP, the Tea Board, and the CGIAR network behind Climate-Smart Villages.
- Policy ideas: 2. The aim of land reforms, and what counts as public investment in agriculture.
So 13 of the 27, the two largest groups, asked what a practice achieves or what a scheme covers. None of the 12 scheme questions asked when a scheme was launched or how much money it spent.
The trap most questions share
The false statement takes a real benefit and claims too much. Neem-coated urea cuts nitrous oxide emissions, but crop fields still release some, so “not at all” is false. PM Fasal Bima Yojana charges farmers 2% for kharif crops, but that is not a “uniform” premium for every crop and season.
Here is how it was set in the practice questions:
| Question | The false claim | What is true |
|---|---|---|
| Neem-coated urea (2016) | No nitrous oxide at all | Emissions fall; coating slows urea dissolving |
| Drip irrigation (2016) | It reduces soil salinity | The key counts fewer weeds and less erosion, not less salinity |
| Soils (2018) | Organic matter “drastically” cuts water holding | It increases water holding |
| Pulses (2020) | Green gram “alone” is half of output | Gram (chickpea) is the largest pulse |
| Sugarcane (2020) | Single-bud setts germinate better | Setts with more buds do better |
| Fertigation (2020) | Works with all phosphatic fertilisers | Only water-soluble ones |
| Fertilisers (2020) | Retail prices are market-driven | Urea prices are fixed by the government |
| Palm oil (2021) | Native to Southeast Asia | Native to West Africa |
Notice the words: “not at all”, “drastically”, “alone”, “all other”. By our count, at least 6 of the 27 questions put a word like this into a false statement or option.
The scheme questions set the same trap more quietly, by adding a use that sounds sensible. The Soil Health Card checks fertiliser overuse; it doesn’t help banks size loans. The Kisan Credit Card’s short-term credit doesn’t buy tractors. Free electricity and loan waivers are subsidies, not public investment.
The second scheme trap is the ministry. The Tea Board and the organic farming programme NPOP both sit under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, not Agriculture or Rural Development. Our post on government schemes found the same “wrong ministry” trap in welfare schemes.
Don’t over-apply the rule, though. Strong words are not always false: “Sikkim has become India’s first fully organic State” was true in 2018. And in 6 of the 27 questions every statement was true: zero tillage, SRI, niger, e-NAM, Climate-Smart Agriculture and the Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
How to prepare
1. For each practice, write what it does and what it doesn’t. Drip irrigation: fewer weeds, less erosion, not less salinity. SRI: less seed, less methane, and less electricity, because less water is pumped. Include the indirect benefit; in the SRI question it is the one students tend to miss.
2. Know the basics of the major crops. Season, water need, native region and main uses. Black gram grows in both kharif and rabi; sugarcane is the thirsty crop. NCERT Class 10 Contemporary India 2, chapter 4, covers much of this.
3. For each scheme, write what it covers and what it doesn’t. Kisan Credit Card: crop, post-harvest and household needs, not tractors or houses. Soil Health Card: nutrient advice, not irrigation or loans.
4. Learn which ministry runs the farm-linked bodies, and where they are based. The Tea Board and NPOP are under Commerce.
5. Solve the past questions before reading more. Start with the crops and farming practices questions and the farm schemes questions, then see the wider agriculture and food topic.
What to skip: launch dates and budget outlays. None of the 27 questions turned on them.
Two questions that show the pattern
2020 · What a practice achieves. Which of four items are advantages of fertigation? Controlling the alkalinity of irrigation water, more nutrients for the plant and less leaching. Not efficient use of “Rock Phosphate and all other phosphatic fertilizers”: rock phosphate is insoluble. The trap was the word “all”. See the question
2022 · Who runs it. Four statements on the Tea Board. It is a statutory body and, when the question was set, had overseas offices in Dubai and Moscow. It is not under the Agriculture Ministry, and its head office is in Kolkata, not Bengaluru. Tea is a crop, so Agriculture sounded right. See the question
For the other high-yield areas, see the must-do list. Plant questions also reward school biology over the news, and we wrote about them here.