UPSC Agriculture Optional Syllabus- Syllabus: Paper I and II

The list of the optional syllabus for the UPSC Examination comprises 48, some of which are Economics, Agriculture, and Psychology. The key focus of the agriculture optional syllabus for UPSC is the aspirant’s ability to grasp a subject like science and use the knowledge to solve real-life problems faced by those involved in agriculture, such as the farmers. There are two papers in the agriculture optional syllabus, each being of 250 marks.

Agriculture Optional Syllabus for UPSC

Agriculture as an optional syllabus is easier for candidates from rural backgrounds because they have already been exposed to such knowledge around agriculture. Such candidates already possess traditional knowledge and have some insight into the issues that farmers face. This is true for both the optional papers in Agriculture for UPSC.  As you read on, you will understand how the syllabi for both papers are geared towards practical implementation.

UPSC Agriculture Optional Syllabus: Paper I

• Ecology:

• How is ecology relevant to man?
• Natural resources
• The sustainable conservation and management of the various natural resources
• The social and physical environment as factors for crop production and distribution
• Agroecology, the pattern of cropping as environment indicators
• Environmental pollution and associated hazards for humans, animals, and crops
• Climate change: its global initiatives and international conventions,
• Global warming and the greenhouse effect
• Ecosystem analysis advance tools such as GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and RS (Remote Sensing)
• Varied cropping patterns across the country’s various agro-climatic zones

• How do short-duration and high-yielding varieties on impact cropping pattern shifts?
• Different farming and cropping system concepts
• Precision and organic farming
• Package of practices for production of important pulses, cereals, fibres, oilseeds, sugar, fodder crops, and commercial crops
• Scope and important features of the various types of forestry plantations, like natural forests, agroforestry, and social forestry

• Forest plants’ propagation
• Products of forests
• Agroforestry and value addition
• Conserving flora & fauna of forests
• Weeds

• Characteristics of weeds
• Dissemination & association of weeds with other crops
• Multiplications of weeds
• Controlling weeds through chemical, biological, and cultural means
• Soil

• Biological, chemical, and physical properties of soil
• Factors affecting soil formation
• Processes of soil formation
• Types of Soils in India
• What are the organic and mineral constituents of soils?
• What is the role of organic and mineral soil constituents in maintaining the productivity of the soil?
• Essential plant nutrients & other elements that are beneficial in plants and soils
• What are the soil fertility principles?
• What are the soil fertiliser and soil testing recommendations?
• Integrated nutrient management.
• All about bio-fertilisers
• Nitrogen loss in soil
• Implementing nitrogen-use efficiency in submerged rice soils
• Nitrogen fixation in soils
• Efficient and effective use of potassium and phosphorus
• Problem soils
• How to reclaim problem soils?
• Which soil factors affect the emission of greenhouse gases?
• Soil conservation

• Integrated management of watershed
• Soil erosion and how to manage it
• Dryland agriculture
• Problems associated with dryland agriculture
• Technology to stabilising agriculture production for rain-fed areas
• The efficiency of use of water for crop production
• Irrigation scheduling criteria
• How to decrease the runoff losses for irrigation water?
• Harvesting of rainwater 
• Sprinkler and Drip irrigation
• Draining waterlogged soils
• Irrigation water quality
• How do industrial effluents affect water and soil to cause pollution?
• India’s various Irrigation projects
• Farm management:

• Characteristics, importance and scope of farm management
• Farm planning
• Budgeting and Optimum use of resources
• Various farming systems and their economics 
• Marketing management: strategies for development & market intelligence
• Fluctuations in price and their cost
• Cooperatives’ role in an agricultural economy
• Systems and types of farming and the factors that affect them
• Agricultural price-policy
• Insurance of crops
• Agricultural extension

• The role and importance of agriculture extension
• Evaluation methods for extension programmes
• Status and socio-economic survey of marginal, small, & big farmers & landless agricultural labourers
• Extension workers’ training programmes
• Role of Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s (KVK) disseminating various Agricultural technologies
• Self-help group and Non-Government Organization (NGO) based approach towards the development of the rural regions

UPSC Agriculture Optional Syllabus: Paper-II

• Cell

• Structure of cell
• Function of cell
• Cell cycle
• Function, structure, and synthesis of genetic material
• Laws of heredity
• Structure of chromosome
• Aberrations of chromosomal
• Chromosomal crossover and linkage
• Significance in recombination breeding in chromosomal
• Polyploidy, euploids & aneuploids
• Mutations 
• Role of mutations in the improvement of crops
• Heritability, sterility and incompatibility, classification, and their application in crop improvement
• Cytoplasmic inheritance, sex-linked, sex-influenced, and sex-limited characters
• Plant breeding

• Plant breeding history
• Modes of crossing, selfing, and techniques of reproduction
• Origin, domestication & evolution of crop plants, the centre of origin
• Homologous series law
• Crop genetic resources conservation and its utilisation
• Applying plant breeding principles
• Improving crop plants
• Molecular markers
• Application of molecular markers in improving plants
• Pure-line selection
• Selection of pedigree
• Mass selection
• Recurrent selections
• Combining ability
• The significance of combining ability in the breeding of plants 
• Heterosis
• Exploitation of heterosis
• Somatic hybridisation
• Breeding for pest resistance
• Breeding for disease resistance
• Role of intergeneric and interspecific hybridisation
• Role of biotechnology & genetic engineering in improving crops
• Genetically modified (GM) crop plants
• Seed

• Seed  production technologies
• Seed processing technologies
• Seed certification
• Testing of seed 
• Storage of seeds
• Seed DNA fingerprinting and seed registration
• Role of the private & public sectors in the production of seed production and their marketing
• Issues related to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
• Issues related to World Trade Organisation (WTO) and how they impact Agriculture
• Plant Physiology
•  Principles of Plant Physiology

• Plant nutrition
• Absorption
• Translocation
• Metabolism of nutrients

• Relationship between soil- water- plant
• Enzymes and plant pigments
• Photosynthesis – the modern concepts & factors that affect the process
• Anaerobic and aerobic respiration
• Various mechanisms, such as C3, C4 & CAM
• Carbohydrates, protein and fat metabolism
• Growth and development
• Vernalisation and photoperiodism
• Substances for plant growth
• Role of plant growth substances in crop production
• Physiology of seed development and germination; dormancy
• Physiology of stress – drought stress, salt stress, & water stress
• Major crops

• Major fruits
• Major plantation crops
• Major vegetables
• Major spices
• Major flower crops
• Practices for packaging major horticultural crops
• Protected cultivation & high-tech horticulture
• The post-harvest technology & value addition of vegetables & fruits 
• Landscaping & commercial floriculture
• Aromatic & medicinal plants
• Role of vegetables & fruits in human nutrition
• Diseases and pests

• Diagnosis of diseases and pests in field crops and their economic importance
• Diagnosis of diseases and pests in vegetables and their economic importance
• Diagnosis of diseases and pests in orchard crops and their economic importance
• Diagnosis of diseases and pests in plantation crops and their economic importance
• Classification of diseases and pests how to manage them
• Integrated disease and pest management
• Storage pests
• Management of storage pests
• Controlling diseases and pests biologically
• Forecasting and epidemiology of major crop diseases and pests
• Measures for plant quarantine
• Pesticides, their formulation and action modes
• Food

• India’s food consumption and production trends
• Food security and the rising population – vision 2020
• Reasons what there is grain surplus
• Food policies – international & national
• Constraints of production, procurement & distribution
• Food grains’ availability of food grains
• Per capita expenditure on food
• Trends in poverty
• Public Distribution System and population Below Poverty Line
• Targeted Public Distribution System (PDS
• Implementation of policy in the context of globalisation
• Constraints of processing
• How is food production related to the pattern of food consumption and the National Dietary Guidelines?
• The food-based dietary approaches for hunger elimination
• Deficiency of nutrients and deficiency of micro-nutrients
• Protein Calorie Malnutrition (PCM)
• Protein Energy Malnutrition (PEM)
• Micro-nutrient deficiency and HRD in context of work capacity of children & women
• Food security & food grain productivity

Conclusion

Of the various optional subjects for UPSC, if you choose to make Agriculture as your choice, you can integrate its preparation along with your General Studies preparation at the time of the Prelims and at the time of Mains. Paper-I and Paper-II are equally important. However, Paper-II of Agriculture Optional Papers focuses on more in-depth and more science-related knowledge and is considered a make-or-break subject for scoring marks. It will prove to be easier to tackle. Follow the UPSC agriculture optional syllabus thoroughly to ace this exam. 

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