Agricultural region is an area which depicts homogeneity in respect of agricultural land use and cropping pattern. It generally shows broad similarities in the nature of crops grown, their combination pattern, method of cultivation, average quantum of inputs and orientation of farming activities.
Such similarities mainly arise out of the uniformity of physical and agro-climatic conditions and socio- cultural characteristics. With the passage of time agricultural regions undergo changes in their salient features and characteristics. The introduction of rice cultivation in Punjab and popularity of wheat in the lower Ganga plain may be cited as examples.
Agricultural regions are affected both by the elements of the physical and’ cultural environment. While former includes climate, topography, soils etc. which have their bearing on the agricultural characteristics, the latter consists of such elements like population density, agricultural practices, agricultural technology, crop land use, land tenure, land ownership, urbanisation, transport and communication lines, agricultural inputs etc. Both these sets of elements are taken into account in agricultural regionalisation.
Due to physical diversity elements of physical environment play significant role in delineating macro and meso agricultural regions. Similarly cultural elements pertaining to agriculture mainly determine third and fourth order micro agricultural regions. Due to predominance of food crops allied and ancillary activities in agriculture are notes important in India as in the European countries so as to be used for agricultural regionalisation.
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That is why one hardly finds agricultural regions dominated by dairying, animal husbandry, horticulture, sericulture, etc.
Many scholars have attempted to divide India into agricultural regions of which mention may be made of E. Simkins (1926), D. Thorner (1956), L.D. Stamp (1958), M.S. Randhawa (1958), Chen Han Seng (1959), O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A. Learmonth (1960), Ramchandran (1963), F. Siddiqui (1967), O.Slampa (1968), P. Sengupta and G. Sdasy uk (1968), B.L.C. Johnson (1969 and 1979), R.L.Singh (1971), and Jasbir Singh (1975). Majority of these scholars have proposed three-tier system of agricultural regionalisation: (a) macro regions (agricultural belts), (b) meso regions (agricultural regions), and (c) micro regions (crop combination regions). Here a brief summary has been given for some of these schemes of regionalisation.