Changing cropping pattern and its impact on agricultural income of West Bengal: A district level study

Abstract

The decision of a farmer in choosing cropping pattern depends on net return or agricultural income per hecter. Main indicate of economic development is per capita income or per capita agricultural income. In this paper we observed the positive relationship between agricultural income pre hecter and crop-diversification index. In West Bengal area under rice, wheat, cereals, sugarcane, potato and fruits and vegetables and oilseeds are increased where as area under pulses, Barley, Mesta and Jute crops are decreased from 1980–81 to 2013–14. There has been remarkable change in rice cultivation. About 13% of gross cropped area are decreased in rice cultivation from 1980–81 to 2013–14. The trends are also dominated by fruits and vegetables. From the analysis of changes in the cropping pattern of Paschim Medinipur for the periods 1970–71 to 2013–14 it could be seen that the proportion of area under total cereals to total cropped area decreased from 86.89 per cent in 1965–66 to 72.69 per cent in 2013–14. The change from subsistence cropping to commercial cropping was noticed in the area shift between just after 1965–66 and 2013–14. Cropping pattern changed in blocks of Paschim Medinipur in favor of non-foodgrains during the period from 1995–96 to 2012–13. Crop-diversification directly or indirectly increased production of crop per hecter or agricultural income per hecter. We observed that there exists a positive relationship between Agricultural Income per Hecter and Diversification index. The positive relationship is statistically significant. It is clear that significant increase in the agricultural income per hecter with diversification index. Side by side, we observed that nearly positive relationship between Compound Annual Growth Rate of Agricultural Income per hecter and Compound Annual Growth Rate of Diversification Index