BharatNotes Built from the Agriculture chapter, whose figures come from the Government of Rajasthan's Economic Review 2025-26 and, for the national rankings, from the Union agriculture ministry's Agricultural Statistics at a Glance 2024, which the Review reproduces. The commonest error in this topic is a share quoted without its year, and this page is built to punish that.
How to use this page
Every answer traces to the parent chapter, and no question invents a fact. The national shares are for 2023-24; the production figures for 2025-26 are Advance Estimates; the land-holding figures are from the Agricultural Census 2015-16; the scheme spending runs up to December 2025.
The distractors are the point. A rank is stable and a share is not — RPSC keyed bajra at 38.98 per cent for 2021-22 while the current Review gives 41.34 for 2023-24, and both are right. Every answer carries a "why not the others" line, because in a paper with negative marking the skill being tested is elimination.
Work in this order: Section B, the zones, before anything else, since it carries the most marks and is the only table published on the current district map; then the national standing; then the production and productivity series; then the holdings and the schemes.
Read the tag on each question
| Tag | What it tests | If you keep missing these |
|---|---|---|
| Type A · share without year | A production share offered without the year it belongs to | Learn the rank; read the year off the stem |
| Type B · estimate stage | An Advance Estimate treated as a final figure | Check whether a figure is Advance, Revised or Final |
| Type C · part-year figure | A nine-month position read as a full year | Anything "up to December" is not a year |
| Type D · designation vs measurement | An official designation read as a production ranking | Ask whether a list names or measures |
| Type E · scope | A state zone confused with a national one, or an area with a share | Ask: whose scheme, and a share of what? |
| Recall / Concept | No trap — the fact, or the reasoning behind it | Ordinary revision |
Section A — What agriculture is worth (Q1–7)
1. Within agricultural Gross Value Added in 2025-26, the largest single sector is — Concept
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(d) Livestock, at 49.35 per cent — larger than the crop sector's 42.61. A chapter on agriculture that only counts grain is describing the smaller half.
Why not the others: all three are real shares from the same figure, and (a) crops at 42.61 per cent is the instinctive answer and the wrong one. The four shares sum to 100.
2. In 2025-26 the crop and livestock sectors grew at — Concept
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(a). The crop sector shrank and livestock grew, and because livestock is the larger share the whole aggregate still managed +0.22 per cent. Livestock carried agriculture in 2025-26.
Why not the others: (b) inverts the two; (c) 0.22 per cent is the aggregate, not either sector; (d) gives the forestry and fishing growth rates.
3. Agriculture and allied sectors as a share of Rajasthan's GVA have moved from 28.56 per cent in 2011-12 to — Recall
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(b) 25.74 per cent in 2025-26. That is structural change, not a bad year — the other sectors grew faster — and it is the ordinary shape of a developing economy.
Why not the others: (a) 42.61 is the crop sector's share within agriculture, a different denominator and the intended trap; (c) and (d) are invented.
4. The average size of an operational land holding in Rajasthan, on the Agricultural Census 2015-16, is — Recall
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(c) 2.73 hectares, down from 3.07 in 2010-11 — a decline of 11.07 per cent.
Why not the others: (a) 3.07 is the previous census figure and the commonest stale answer; (b) 1.08 hectares is the all-India average frequently quoted alongside it, and it is not Rajasthan's; (d) is invented.
5. Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, which size class of holdings fell in both number and area? Concept
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(d) Large holdings, above 10 hectares — down 11.14 per cent in number and 13.20 per cent in area.
Why not the others: marginal, small and semi-medium all rose in both. Medium holdings rose slightly in number and fell slightly in area, which is the only ambiguous class. More holdings across less land is what fragmentation means arithmetically.
6. The fastest-growing category in the land-holdings table is — Concept
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(a) female-held holdings, up 41.94 per cent against an overall 11.14 — and the area women hold rose 24.44 per cent while the state's total holding area fell. Women are the only group in the table gaining land.
Why not the others: (b) and (d) are real growth rates for size classes but smaller; (c) barely moved. The question rewards noticing that the fastest-growing category is not a size at all.
7. Marginal and small holdings together account for what share of Rajasthan's holdings? Recall
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(b) about 62 per cent — marginal 40.12 plus small 21.90.
Why not the others: (a) 40.12 is marginal alone; (c) is roughly the semi-medium share; (d) overstates it. That 62 per cent is the constituency every scheme in the chapter is aimed at.
Section B — The zones, state and national (Q8–17)
8. India's national agro-climatic regions, as the Planning Commission drew them, number — Type E · scope
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(d) fifteen, of which fourteen are on the mainland and one covers the islands.
Why not the others: (a) ten is Rajasthan's own state scheme, and confusing the two is the standard error on this question; (b) and (c) are invented.
9. Rajasthan appears in how many of those national regions? Type E · scope
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(a) three — Zone VI Trans-Gangetic plain, Zone VIII Central plateau and hills, and Zone XIV Western dry region.
Why not the others: (b) is the version in wide circulation and it is wrong. ICAR's own table gives Zone IX, the Western plateau and hills region, as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, with no Rajasthan entry. (c) and (d) drop regions the table does list.
10. Which national agro-climatic region is represented by Rajasthan alone? Recall
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(d) Zone XIV, the Western dry region — the only zone in the country represented by a single state.
Why not the others: (a) VI also holds Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana and Punjab; (b) VIII also holds Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh; (c) IX does not include Rajasthan at all.
11. In Rajasthan's own ten-zone scheme, the only zone in which paddy is a major kharif crop is — Recall
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(b) Zone IV-B — Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh and Salumber, where the Review lists maize, paddy, jowar and blackgram.
Why not the others: none of the other nine zones lists paddy. Rice is not a Rajasthan crop except in the humid southern pocket, and an option putting paddy in the west or north is wrong on the state's own zoning.
12. Cotton and guar are the named kharif crops of which zone? Recall
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(a) Zone I-B, the Irrigated North Western Plain — Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh, the state's canal-irrigated corner.
Why not the others: (b) I-A grows bajra, moth and sesamum; (c) II-A grows bajra, guar and pulses but not cotton; (d) V is the soyabean zone. Cotton needs the irrigation, which is why it sits in the one zone whose name contains the word.
13. Soyabean appears as a named kharif crop in which zone? Recall
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(c) Zone V — Kota, Baran, Bundi and Jhalawar, with jowar and soyabean in kharif and wheat and mustard in rabi.
Why not the others: the Hadoti districts are the state's soyabean country and no other zone lists the crop. Zone V is also the wettest of the ten, which is why it can carry it.
14. Barley appears as a named rabi crop in exactly one zone, which is — Recall
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(a) Zone III-B — Alwar, Deeg, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli and Sawai Madhopur, where the rabi list is wheat, barley, mustard and gram.
Why not the others: every other zone's rabi list runs to wheat, mustard, gram or cumin without barley. A crop that appears once in ten zones is exactly what a matching question is built from.
15. Cumin appears as a named rabi crop in which zone? Recall
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(d) Zone I-A — Jodhpur, Phalodi, Barmer and Balotra, with wheat, mustard and cumin in rabi.
Why not the others: cumin is named in no other zone's rabi list. It corroborates the Panch Gaurav crop for both Jodhpur and Phalodi, which is cumin in each case.
16. Which district is split between two zones by tehsil? Concept
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(b) Churu, divided between Zone I-C (Ratangarh, Sardarshahar, Bidasar and Sujangarh tehsils) and Zone II-A (the rest).
Why not the others: Sirohi and Beawar are also split — Sirohi between II-B and IV-A with Pindwara and Abu Road going to the sub-humid south, and Beawar between II-B and III-A. Jaipur, Kota and Banswara sit wholly within one zone each. A zone question that names a tehsil rather than a district is testing exactly this.
17. The chapter notes an unusual virtue in the Review's zone table. It is that — Concept
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(c). It names Phalodi, Balotra, Deedwana-Kuchaman, Khairthal-Tijara, Kotputli-Behror, Beawar, Deeg and Salumber — all created in 2023 and all retained in the December 2024 cull — so no correction for the reorganisation is needed.
Why not the others: (a) the table gives crops, not rainfall; (b) the two schemes are unrelated; (d) is not claimed anywhere.
Section C — Where Rajasthan stands nationally (Q18–26)
18. Rajasthan's share of India's guar production is about — Recall
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(b) 88.80 per cent — not a plurality but nearly nine-tenths of the national crop. No other state comes close in any crop on the table.
Why not the others: each is a real Rajasthan share for a different crop — (a) rapeseed and mustard, (d) bajra, (c) total oilseeds. Guar is the number to carry above all others.
19. In which crop is Rajasthan second in the country rather than first? Recall
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(c) groundnut, at 19.91 per cent, behind Gujarat and ahead of Madhya Pradesh.
Why not the others: Rajasthan is first in bajra, coarse cereals and total oilseeds, as well as in rapeseed and mustard and guar. Groundnut is the only second place on the table.
20. In gram, total pulses and soyabean, Rajasthan ranks third behind — Recall
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(a) Madhya Pradesh first and Maharashtra second, in all three.
Why not the others: the pattern is worth more than the three entries. Rajasthan leads in the dry crops and trails in the wet ones — its firsts are millets, oilseeds and a desert legume; its thirds are pulses and soyabean, where the black-soil states lead.
21. RPSC asked Rajasthan's share of India's bajra production in 2021-22 and keyed — Type A · share without year
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(c) 38.98 per cent, for 2021-22.
Why not the others: (b) 41.34 per cent is the same fact for 2023-24, from the current Review — both are correct for their years, and the stem supplies the year for exactly that reason. (a) and (d) were the paper's other distractors. Learn the rank, which is stable, and read the percentage off the stem's year.
22. The national rankings in the Economic Review carry a source line naming — Concept
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(b). A state document cannot settle its own national rank, and this one does not try to — it reproduces the Union agriculture ministry's compilation and says so.
Why not the others: (c) is the source for the land holdings, a different table on the same page; (a) and (d) are not cited for the ranking.
23. Rajasthan's share of India's rapeseed and mustard production, for 2023-24, is — Recall
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(a) 43.43 per cent, first in the country, ahead of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Why not the others: (b) 14.21 is coarse cereals, (d) 23.61 is total oilseeds, (c) 17.39 is gram — all Rajasthan shares for other crops on the same table.
24. Which state leads India in coarse cereals, with Rajasthan's own share at 14.21 per cent? Recall
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(d) Rajasthan itself is first, with Karnataka second and Uttar Pradesh third.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are the second and third places; (c) does not appear in the top three for this crop. The question tests whether you read the 14.21 as a share rather than as a rank — a state can lead the country on a modest share when the crop is widely spread.
25. Rajasthan is described in the chapter as leading on — Concept
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(d) area rather than yield — a very large state farming a very large number of hectares at modest productivity per hectare. That is the honest one-line description of Rajasthan's agriculture and a better Mains opening than any ranking.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are contradicted by the productivity table; (c) ignores five national firsts.
26. Food grain productivity in Rajasthan in 2024-25 was — Recall
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(d) 1,940 kg per hectare, up from 1,628 the year before — a good productivity year.
Why not the others: (a) 2,537 is cereals alone, (b) 773 is pulses, (c) 1,628 is the 2023-24 food grain figure. Three of the four are real numbers from the same table.
Section D — Production, and the estimate stage (Q27–34)
27. Total food grain production in Rajasthan in 2025-26 is expected to be — Type B · estimate stage
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(b) 283.98 lakh tonnes, down 8.28 per cent — and it is an Advance Estimate, which will be revised.
Why not the others: (a) 309.62 is 2024-25 Final; (c) 240.93 is 2023-24; (d) 194.43 is the rabi component of 2025-26, not the total. A figure quoted from this page as a final result would be wrong by the time the next Review appears.
28. Within that year, the kharif and rabi food grain figures moved by — Concept
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(a). The kharif failed and the rabi held. That is what a weak monsoon looks like in a production table: the rain-fed season takes the loss and the irrigated season does not.
Why not the others: (b) inverts them; (c) −8.28 is the combined figure; (d) gives the kharif and rabi pulses growth rates, which rose in the same year.
29. Which crop group rose in 2025-26 against the general trend? Concept
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(d) oilseeds, to 100.46 lakh tonnes — and rabi pulses rose 22.34 per cent in the same year.
Why not the others: (a) cereals fell in both seasons; (b) sugarcane fell 22.37 per cent; (c) food grains fell 8.28 per cent. A bad grain year is not a bad agricultural year for every crop, and an answer that generalises from the food-grain line is overreaching.
30. Cotton production in Rajasthan is measured in — Concept
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(b) lakh bales, each of 170 kg — the Review states the bale weight in its own footnote. Production for 2025-26 is 17.94 lakh bales.
Why not the others: (a) and (c) are the units for every other crop in the table, which is why cotton is footnoted separately; (d) is an area unit. Quoting cotton in tonnes without converting is a standard error.
31. Which of these does the Review define as a rabi oilseed? Recall
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(d) taramira, with rape and mustard and linseed.
Why not the others: groundnut, sesamum, soyabean and castor are the Review's kharif oilseeds. The four kharif and three rabi names are worth learning as two closed lists, because a question can offer one from the wrong season.
32. The largest horticultural area in Rajasthan in 2024-25 belonged to — Concept
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(b) spices, at 13,64,822 hectares — more than four times fruits and vegetables combined.
Why not the others: (a) fruits took 92,993 ha and (c) vegetables 2,04,755 ha; (d) is not in the Review's table. Spices also have the lowest yield of the three, about 1,077 kg per hectare — a fourteenth of the fruit yield — because cumin and coriander are low-tonnage, high-value crops.
33. Why does the chapter compute no growth rate across the spice series? Concept
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(c). Area moves 9,22,616 → 6,84,449 → 13,64,822 hectares across 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, and the Review offers no explanation. The 2024-25 row is quoted as printed and the swing is flagged rather than smoothed.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are false — spices are the largest horticultural area; (d) applies to the crop production table, not this one.
34. Rajasthan's total reporting area and net sown share, on the Review's 2024-25 figures, are — Recall
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(a) 343.43 lakh hectares, of which 53.02 per cent is net sown.
Why not the others: (b) 208.73 lakh ha is the area under operational holdings; (c) uses the geographical area with the desert region's share; (d) 159.61 lakh ha is the food grain area for 2024-25.
Section E — Seasons, varieties, schemes and the Panch Gaurav crop (Q35–45)
35. The kharif season is known locally in Rajasthan as — Recall
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(b) Syalu or Savanu, sown June-July and harvested October-November.
Why not the others: (a) Unalu is the rabi, sown October-November and harvested March-April; (c) barani means rain-fed land, not a season; (d) Zaid is the third season, between rabi and kharif.
36. The Zaid season in Rajasthan carries — Concept
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(c). Zaid runs March to June, between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing, and carries watermelon, muskmelon and green vegetables.
Why not the others: (a) are rabi crops, (b) and (d) kharif. An option offering a cereal as a zaid crop is wrong on that alone.
37. RPSC asked in 2023 what Mahi Kanchan and RCB 911 are hybrid varieties of. The key was — Recall
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(a) maize and bajra respectively.
Why not the others: (b) reverses the pair, which is the intended trap and the option a hasty reader takes. The recoverable clue is the prefix: the state's bajra hybrids carry RCB and RHB, so RCB 911 is bajra by its name alone.
38. The "Mahi" in Mahi Kanchan and Mahi Sugandha identifies — Concept
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(c). Mahi Kanchan is a maize hybrid and Mahi Sugandha a rice variety, both from the same Banswara station — so the prefix names the place, not the crop.
Why not the others: (a) is exactly the inference the naming invites and it is wrong; (b) and (d) are inventions. An option pairing two Mahi varieties with the same crop is exploiting this.
39. From Rabi 2025-26, the National Food Security and Nutrition Mission for Pulses was merged into — Recall
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(d), with a special focus on tur, urad and masoor and 100 per cent procurement of those three by NCCF and NAFED.
Why not the others: (a) PM-AASHA is the umbrella under which the Price Support Scheme procures other pulses — related but not the merger destination; (b) is the oilseed mission; (c) absorbed the Soil Health Card, a different scheme.
40. Under the NFSNM from 2025-26, wheat covers how many districts and pulses how many? Recall
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(a) wheat in 18 named districts and pulses in all 41.
Why not the others: (b) inverts them; (c) uses the pre-2023 district count; (d) uses the agro-climatic zone count. The asymmetry is the point — pulses are a statewide priority and wheat is not.
41. The Rajasthan Masala Conclave 2025 was held on 8 September 2025 at — Recall
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(b) Birla Auditorium, Jaipur, chaired by the Chief Minister, where the Rajasthan State Agricultural Marketing Board launched the Raj Spice App — with about 4,000 traders registered by the Review's reporting date.
Why not the others: all three are real spice districts and none hosted the conclave. Spices are the state's largest horticultural area, which is why the event matters.
42. The Panch Gaurav crop named for Barmer is — Recall
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(c) isabgol.
Why not the others: each is another district's Panch Gaurav crop — (a) moth is Bikaner's, (b) mehandi is Pali's, (d) aloevera is Churu's. The unique and unusual pairings are the memorable ones, and all four appear in the same column.
43. Which crop appears as the Panch Gaurav crop of four different districts? Concept
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(b) onion — Alwar, Khairthal-Tijara, Deedwana-Kuchaman and Sikar.
Why not the others: (a) mustard covers three (Jhunjhunu, Deeg, Tonk), (d) custard apple three, (c) cumin two (Jodhpur and Phalodi, which were one district until 2023). A crop does not identify a district uniquely; a district identifies a crop uniquely, so the question can only run safely in one direction.
44. The chapter warns that the Panch Gaurav crop list must not be quoted as — Type D · designation vs measurement
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(c). It is an official designation under a state initiative and it does not state that the named crop leads the district in area, production or value. Coaching material that converts the list into a "largest producer" table is adding a claim the source does not make.
Why not the others: (a), (b) and (d) are all true of the list — it is official, it is on the 41-district map, and it is from the Review's Executive Summary.
45. Match the crop with Rajasthan's national position.
(A) Guar (B) Groundnut (C) Soyabean (D) Bajra
(i) First, 41.34% (ii) Second, 19.91% (iii) Third, 8.96% (iv) First, 88.80% Recall
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(a) A-(iv), B-(ii), C-(iii), D-(i). Guar 88.80% first; groundnut 19.91% second; soyabean 8.96% third; bajra 41.34% first.
Why not the others: (b) swaps the two firsts, which is the trap — both guar and bajra are firsts, and only the share separates them. (c) and (d) cross the second and third places.
More in This Series
- Agriculture of Rajasthan: Crops, Zones and the State's Standing — the parent chapter
- Every RAS Prelims Geography question, 2013–2024 — the five official agriculture questions with RPSC's keys
- Soils of Rajasthan
- Caution for Readers — the claims that are genuinely unsettled
