BharatNotes Fallow
adjective; noun; verb (transitive)Usage in a UPSC answer
After years of policy churn, the rural employment scheme was allowed to lie fallow, its administrative machinery intact but its developmental energies dormant for want of timely funds and political will.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
fallowed (adj), fallowing (v pres.p), fallowest (adj superl)
Root
Old English fealh/fealg = fallow land; Proto-West Germanic falgu; Proto-Indo-European polḱéh₂ = arable land
Etymology
From Old English fealh, fealg ("fallow land"), from Proto-West Germanic falgu, from Proto-Indo-European polḱéh₂ ("arable land").
Memory Hook
"Fallow" sounds like "follow" — a field that lies fallow now will let a richer harvest follow later, because rest restores the soil.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
Cultivable land deliberately left unsown for a season or more. The Indian land-use classification is the examinable content, because it separates two categories that sound alike: current fallow is land left uncropped for one year or less, while fallow other than current fallow covers land left uncropped for between one and five years, and land uncultivated beyond five years passes into culturable waste. The distinction matters diagnostically rather than merely definitionally, since current fallow reflects ordinary rotation and moisture management, whereas a rise in the second category signals distress, because it usually means cultivation has been abandoned for want of water, credit or labour rather than chosen for agronomic reasons. Historically fallowing restored fertility by permitting nitrogen fixation and the accumulation of organic matter and by breaking pest cycles, and the Green Revolution reduced it by substituting chemical fertiliser and assured irrigation for that natural recovery, which raised output while shifting the fertility problem from land management to input supply.
Don’t Confuse It With
Current fallow is land left uncropped for a year or less, fallow other than current fallow for one to five years, and beyond five years land becomes culturable waste, so the categories are defined by duration. Net sown area is land sown at least once in the year while gross cropped area counts it again for each crop taken, and the ratio between them is cropping intensity. Barren and unculturable land cannot be brought under cultivation at all, which is what distinguishes it from culturable waste.
Hindi Meaning
परती भूमि (partī bhūmi); चालू परती for current fallow.
Common Questions
- What is the difference between current fallow and other fallow?
- Current fallow is land left uncropped for one year or less, while fallow other than current fallow covers one to five years; beyond five years the land is classed as culturable waste.
- Why is a rise in fallow land a concern?
- Because fallow beyond the current year usually reflects abandonment for want of water, credit or labour rather than deliberate rotation, so it signals agrarian distress.
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