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Drought and Socioeconomic Drivers of Crop Diversity in India: A Panel Analysis

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Abstract

Understanding the trends in crop diversity in context of changing socioeconomic and climatic factors are essential for implementing sustainable agricultural practices. The Shannon Index was adopted to calculate crop diversity across all districts of India from 2001 to 2021. High-resolution Standardized Precipitation Eevapotranspiration Index (SPEI) data was developed using the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation (CHIRPS) and Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model's (GLEAM) data to capture climate variability. A panel regression was employed using ordinary least squares, fixed effects, and random effects models. Crop diversity in India experiences an increase of 2.6% between 2001 and 2021. During the study period, India experienced an increase in the proportion of land dedicated to non-food crops, rising from 19.79% to 22.80%. The area allocated to cereal and millet crops experienced a decline, decreasing from 54.51% to 50.61%. SPEI is a significant factor in diversified agriculture, showing a negative association. Higher urbanization, road density, number of markets, the presence of organic carbon in the soil, improved seeds, fertilizers, and credit facilities for farmers reduce crop diversity. Access to irrigation increases the likelihood of practicing in diversified crop. Increasing education level of farmers positively influences the practice of crop diversity in India. Farmers in droughtprone areas of India often adopted diversified cropping practices.

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Availability of Data and Material

The datasets used the study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the University Grants Commission (UGC) for providing the NET-JRF fellowship to the first author for conduction PhD work. The authors are thankful the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of India for making the agricultural census data available on public domain. We express our gratitude to the IIPS library for providing access to the open-access peer-reviewed journals. We are thankful to all the providers of the datasets used such as CHIPRS, GLEAM, SEDAC, GRIP, SRTM, HWSD, TCI and Agmarket in the study.

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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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  1. Department of Population & Development, International Institute for Population Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai, 400088, India

    Arup Jana & Aparajita Chattopadhyay

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  1. Arup Jana
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AC contributed to conceptualization, validation, and editing the draft. AJ contributed to conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, and writing (original draft preparation). All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Arup Jana.

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Jana, A., Chattopadhyay, A. Drought and Socioeconomic Drivers of Crop Diversity in India: A Panel Analysis. Agric Res 12, 450–461 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-023-00665-8

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