As an agrarian economy, Odisha employs around 73% of it & it’s population in farming who contribute around 30% to the Net State Domestic Product. Of the total land area, around 40% that translates to roughly around 87.46 lakh hectares are brought to agriculture every year and about 18.79 lakh hectare of this cropped area is irrigated. Thus a major portion of the farm land depends on rain for water feeding the crop. Also the area under agriculture is comparatively more in the coastal districts of Odisha i.e. Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Ganjam, Jajpur, Jagatasinghpur, Kendrapara, Khurda, Nayagarh, Puri etc. Incidentally these are also the regions of the state which fare better in the literacy rate index. The major crops are rice, pulses, oil seeds, jute, coconut and turmeric. The crops like tea, cotton, groundnut and rubber are of great economic importance in other parts. Odisha contributes one tenth of the total rice produced in the country. Other important food grains include pulses like gram, tur and arhar and Oilseeds like groundnut, mustard and castor oil. Apart from food grains various cash crops are also cultivated in the state. These include Jute, mesta, sugarcane, tobacco, rubber, tea, coffee and turmeric. These are cultivated across different geographical areas of Odisha. Odisha stands fourth in the production of jute in the country after West Bengal , Bihar and Assam. Rice and jute, compete with each other as they require almost similar soil and climatic conditions. Cultivation of jute is primarily confined to the coastal plains of Cuttack, Balasore and Puri districts.