Status and determinants of crop diversification: evidence from Indian States

• Published in: Letters in spatial and resource sciences Vol. 17; no. 1; p. 1
• Main Authors: Kumar, Chinmaya Ranjan, Nayak, Chittaranjan, Pradhan, Ashis Kumar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.12.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural Economics; Agricultural management; Agriculture; Cereals; Consumption; Crops; Demography; Density; Diversification; Economics; Economics and Finance; Electricity; Employment; Environmental Economics; Farmers; Food; Geographical Information Systems/Cartography; Irrigation; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; Livelihood; Original Paper; Regional/Spatial Science; Time series; Indian states; ARDL regression; Q18; Crop diversification; Panel data; Q15
• ISSN: 1864-4031; 1864-404X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12076-023-00366-4

Crop diversification is indispensable for the development of Indian agriculture. The present paper examines the cropping pattern and status of crop diversification across 28 Indian states. It uses a balanced panel for the period 2000-01 to 2015-16 for all the states and deploys a Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag model to identify the determinants of crop diversification. The paper observes that diversification is higher in the southern and western parts of India than in the northern and eastern parts. The analysis finds that cropping intensity, gross state domestic product, rural road density, and operational holding have led to crop diversification. In contrast, credit, fertilizer, irrigation intensity, and electricity have led to crop concentration. Overall findings endorse crop diversification promotion to improve the livelihood and farm-level output at the macro level.