Home Preparation for National Talent Search Examination (NTSE)/ Olympiad
Chapter : 3. Peasants and Farmers
The India Farmer And Opium Production
Over the period of colonial rule, the rural landscape was radically transformed. As cultivation expanded, the area under forests and pastures declined. In the colonial period, rural India also came to produce a range of crops for the world market. In the early nineteenth century, indigo and opium were two of the major commercial crops. By the end of the century, peasants were producing sugarcane, cotton, jute, wheat and several other crops for export, to feed the population of urban. Europe and to supply the mills of Lancashire and Manchester in England.