Levels of Agriculture Development and Crop Diversification: A District-Wise Panel Data Analysis in West Bengal

Abstract

Crop diversification is an important management to augment agriculture development sustainability in India, including income-enhancing strategies for farmers and employment generation, poverty eradication, judicious use of natural resources and promoting ecological management. This study analyzed the nature, extent and association between levels of agricultural development and crop diversification across districts of West Bengal using secondary data. The Herfindahl index has been used to calculate agricultural diversification, and the level of agricultural development was developed based on a composite z-score through selected parameters of agriculture. The result shows that the diversity of crops is diversifying at a faster rate than the all-India level. However, this has happened only in a few selected areas and not in the entire state. The level of crop diversification and agriculture development found varies among districts of West Bengal. It has been found that crop diversification has a positive correlation with all selected indicators of agriculture such as irrigation, cultivators, gross sown area and levels of agricultural development as a whole, showing a strongly positive correlation with crop diversification, indicating that crop diversification has increased with an increase in the level of agricultural development. Major constraints for low crop diversification in some districts of West Bengal are lack of irrigation facilities, frequent droughts, erratic rainfall, poor asset base, lack of awareness and training, lack of credit facilities, traditional farming practices, average land holding size and per capita income. Thus, the growth of crop diversification can be improved through technical support, supply of quality input, insurance coverage and the existence of modern storage-processing centers in the low agriculture diversified regions.