As the district is basically a dry land predominant without an assured irrigation, the crops under this group in their order of area of cultivation are Ragi, Paddy (Rice), Minor millets (locally they are known as Navane, Korale, Save and the like. While ragi is cultivated in almost all the taluks as a Kariff crop, some amount of this crop is also grown with well and tank irrigation. Paddy or Rice is purely an irrigated crop depended on well irrigation or tank irrigation. Off late (since 1980’s) extention of canal irrigation has marginally increased its area in western taluks of the district. In almost all the taluks, the cultivation of minor millets has considerably declined. This is on one hand is due to change in people’s attitude towards consumption of them and on the other, the cultivation of tree crops in such marginal lands like Tamarind, Mangoes etc. in recent years. In a semiarid rain dependent cultivable lands once supported these minor millets under sustainably evolved form of agriculture. But people at present do not have the concept of sustainable concept to agriculture compared to our elders. It is a loss to agricultural bio-diversity and also to some extent food security.

A glance at Table-2 shows a distributing scenario of declining cereals growing area in the district. It has declined from 42.4% in 1995-96 to 36.9% and further to 35.2% of total cropped area in the district. Infact, it is a loss and threatens the food security of the district. People in yester years used to be self sufficient in these basic cereal like Ragi and Rice but now they have switched over to commercial non cereals crops like groundnut or coconut, mulberry, flowers and fruits. This has made them to buy food grains and worst of it is also to buy fodder too. There is a decline in draft animals and there is an increase in use of inanimate power due to globalization (tractors, Harvesters too). Decline in bio-manure which has made farmers to use chemical manures, which too have become costly over the years has caused damage to the soils. Declining cereals in a way is adding unsustanability of agriculture in the district with other consequences which need some more space to explain.

Table 1

Taluks	Geogra-phical Area (000 hac)	Literacy (%)					Major irrigated Area (%)		Net Irrigated Area (In hac)	%	**I.A. in N.S.A.	***R.F. (2015)
		Male	Female	Average	Net Sown Area (in hac)*	%	Wells	Tanks
C.N. Halli	113.0 (10.6)	79.5	60.8	70.2	57865 (9.3)	51.2	9913 (9.7)	28 (0.3)	9941	6.3	17.2	496.2
Gubbi	122.1 (11.4)	76.7	58.2	67.5	73039 (11.8)	59.8	25806 (96.0)	1076 (4.0)	26882	17.1	36.8	551.3
Korat-agere	70.9 (6.6)	73.3	51.8	62.7	37592 (6.1)	53.0	7080 (98.3)	122 (1.7)	7202	4.6	19.1	753.4
Kunigal	99.1 (9.3)	72.0	51.0	61.3	57145 (9.2)	58.0	5288 (30.0)	7730 (43.8)	17651	11.2	30.9	848.0
Madugiri	112.1 (10.5)	72.7	49.4	61.2	54727 (8.8)	49.0	12801 (99.7)	39 (0.3)	12840	8.2	23.5	582.4
Pavagada	135.8 (12.8)	68.6	44.0	56.5	86955 (14.0)	64.0	11330 (7.8)	258 (2.2)	11588	7.4	13.3	415.5
Sira	15.4 (14.6)	73.1	51.4	62.4	87883 (14.3)	56.5	17087 (91.6)	1567 (8.4)	18654	12.0	21.2	591.2
Tiptur	76.5 (7.3)	83.7	66.2	75.0	50258 (8.1)	66.0	9381 (65.3)	4981 (34.7)	14362	9.2	28.6	647.4
Tumkur	103.8 (9.7)	82.3	67.1	75.0	60702 (9.8)	58.5	22051 (97.9)	464 (2.1)	22515	14.3	37.1	796.4
Turuvekere	76.0 (7.2)	81.7	61.1	71.0	53488 (8.6)	70.4	7855 (51.5)	7387 (48.5)	15242	9.7	28.5	671.7
District Total	1064.7	76.8	56.9	67.0	619654	58.2	128592 (82.0)	23652 (15.1)	156877	14.7	25.3	635.4

* In the Geographical Areaof Taluk. **Percentage of Irrigated area in Net Sown Area. ***Average AnnualRainfall in mm.

Table 2

	Crops	1995-96			2005-06			2015-16
		Area (in hec.)	%	GR	Area (in hec.)	%	GR	Area (in hec.)	%	GR
A.	Cereals	2,18,609	42.4	-	2,20,037	36.9	+0.06	2,31,358	35.2	+0.51
B.	Pulses	91,407	17.7	-	65,297	11.0	-2.85	53,158	8.1	- 1.86
C.	Oil Seeds	1,58,997	30.9	-	2,54,762	42.8	+6.02	3,04,524	46.3	+1.95
D.	Spices	4,286	0.8	-	5,194	0.9	+2.12	5,497	0.8	+0.60
E.	Other Commercial Crops	41,595	8.1	-	45,137	7.6	+0.85	60,328	9.2	+3.36
	Total Cropped Area	5,14,896	100.0	-	5,95,499	100.0	+1.60	6,57,865	100.0	+1.05
	Net Sown Area	5,04,287	-	-	5,73,244	-	+1.40	6,19,654	-	+0.81

Source : Bureau of Economic and Statistics, Government ofKarnataka, Bangalore

4 .2    Pulses

These are leguminous intertiled crops like Tur, Moong, Horsegram and the like. As the study area has predominantly rain depended cultivation along with minor millets, some of these crops too have further declined. Farmers prefer to grow exclusive by groundnut crops without much intertiling of pulses. Rise in horticultural crops area has taken the toll of these protein rich crop, exposing people to malnutrition. In earlier years most of the farmers used to compulsorily grow some amount of all the pulses but at present they depend out side sources playing very high price for them. Definitely not only it has added to vulnerability of farming community towards food security but also to malnutrition. Table-2 shows pulses growing area in the cropped area of respective years has declined from 17% in 1995-96 to 11.0% in 2005-06 to 8.1% by 2015-16.

Tumkur district has two important oil seeds cultivated where in a way only groundnut is a really predominant oil seed cultivated in most of the taluks as Kharif crops. But coconut which is included here too forms an important oil crop often in exclusive grooves and also coconut palms planted along boarder of agricultural lands. Due to extension of tube well irrigation in the recent decades their cropped area has increased substantially. In each taluk and district head quarters oil industries are a common sight in the study area. Tiptur town has carved out a rich in coconut oil production and in the dry coconut kernel (copra) trade in the state. Farmers now a day’s grow groundnut not only as Kariff crop but also under well irrigation in non-Kariff season. In the study period, the cultivation of these oil seeds has seen remarkable growth from 30.9% of net sown area. in 1995-96 to 42.8% in 2005-06 and further to 46.3% of total cropped area in the district. In the case of growth in coconut cultivation, as there is an artificial shortage of agricultural labourers as there also is rise in rural–urban migration, people have started growing garden crops like coconut which needs limited agriculture labourers.

One conspicus aspect is in the earlier years farmers used to grow castor oil seeds and Niger seeds (Huchhayellu). Their cultivation has declined in the study region in the recent years which may be due to people’s attitude towards food items and changing life style. In fact, in a semi-arid region like this these crops are highly desirable and their consumption too is healthy but unfortunately the ubiquitous trading of some of fashionable imported items have caused their decline and loss of bio-diversity in food /oil crops

Basically the study region is not a major spice crops area, but this included the cultivation of mostly Redpepper (chillies), small quantities of coriander, fenugreek and the like. A few decades back most of the families in the Karieff season used to grow them on a sustainable basis. In a piece of land often less than even ½ acre they used to grow chillies with many inter tilled vegetables (Bringal, Ridge guard, Lady finger and may others). In the edge of the plot they used plant special variety of caster and tur with pumpkin like guards. By the end of each karieff season most of the farmers used to have enough home grown chillies and vegetables. By autumn /Rabi season they used to grow coriander, fenugreeks and Block gram etc., which has vanished almost of the villages in the study area. This is mainly due to people’s greed to grow in a larger area either maize or groundnut as commercial crops under well irrigation. No doubt they are getting some income but they are forced to loose nutrient originated home grown vegetables and other species. There is a greater loss of agricultural biodiversity due to decline of their cultivation.

But the cultivation of Green chillies and raw coriander for growing urban markets have shown the rise in spice growing area. It has increased over the years to more or less than 1% of total cropped area in the region during the study period.

Mostly consists of tree crops like Mango, Tamarind etc. in the study region. In the recent years as it has been explained earlier under coconut crop, there is a shortage of farm labourers, which is truly a in populous country like ours. Urban literate farmers more and more nuclear families, migration of youths to cities like Bangalore have forced the farmer to grow more and coconut, Mango and Tamarind by less labour. As they are annuals and commercial crops their cultivation suites their urban mode of living too. The worry some factor is that, some of the valuable, cereals /food crops growing areas are being increasingly brought under their annuals. Off late these crops too are facing glut even in globalizing world. They are forcing losses and they have been frequently ravaged by hailstorms, unusual occasions, heavy rains with gales and in some years famines too. In fact 2010 Mango crop season is a best example exported crop has dwindled to mere 20-30%!

There is an overall remarkable rise in their absolute cultivated area in the total cropped area. They had 8.1% in 1995-96 if slightly declined to 7.6% 2005-06, and due to aforesaid factors by 2015-16 there is substantial rise to 9.2% of total cropped area.