Crop pattern has been defined as the proportion of area under different crops at a particular period of time. A change in cropping pattern means a change in the proportion of area under different crops.
These decisions with respect to the choice of crops and cropping systems are further narrowed down under influence of several other forces related to infrastructure facilities, socio-economic factors, and technological developments, all operating interactively at the micro-level.
These are:
Economic motivations are also important in determining the cropping pattern. The prices influence the acreage under the crops in two ways. One is that the variations in the intercrop price disparities led to shifts in acreage between the crops. Another is that the maintenance of a stable level of prices for a crop provides a better incentive to the producer to increase the opt put than what a very high level of price does if there is no uncertainty of this level being maintained over a number of years.
Fixed procurement prices of wheat and rice and other Government controls have induced farmers to shift the cultivation to cash crops like sugarcane.
Farmers also would choose the combination of crops which would give them maximum income. Relative profitability per acre is the main consideration that influences the crop pattern. Small farmers are first interested in producing food grains for their requirements and devote only a small relative acreage to cash crops than large farmers. In fact, in recent years, it is the small farmer who has been increasing their sugarcane areas more than large farmers. Food Crop Acts, Land use Acts, intensive schemes for paddy, cotton, oil seed” etc. all bring sharply into focus the possibility that while each individual measure may push the crop pattern in the direction intended to if the overall effect of all measures taken together on the entire crop pattern is taken, it may not be in accordance with national requirements.
Table of Contents
The multiplicity of cropping systems has been one of the main features of Indian agriculture. This may be attributed to the following two major factors:
Under influence of all the above factors, cropping systems remain dynamic in time and space, making it difficult to precisely determine their spread using conventional methods, over a large territory. However, it has been estimated that more than 250 double cropping systems are followed throughout the country. Based on the rationale of the spread of crops in each district in the country, 30 important cropping systems have been identified.
These are; rice-wheat, rice-rice, rice-gram, rice-mustard, rice-groundnut, rice-sorghum, pearl millet-gram, pearl millet-mustard, pearl millet-sorghum, cotton-wheat, cotton-gram, cotton-sorghum, cotton-safflower, cotton-groundnut, maize-wheat maize-gram, sugarcane-wheat,soybean-wheat, sorghum-sorghum, groundnut-wheat, sorghum-groundnut, groundnut-rice, sorghum-wheat, sorghum-gram, pigeon pea-sorghum, groundnut-groundnut, sorghum-rice, groundnut-sorghum, and soybean-gram.
The most convenient method is to classify agricultural production into two groups ie.
A large proportion of the area under food grains is occupied by cereals. The food grains occupied an area of 97.3 m ha. in 1950-51 increased to 124.3 m ha. in 1970-71. From 1970-71 it increased to 126.7 and 127.8 million ha. in 1980-81 and 1990-91 respectively. But the figures in 1992- 93 show a slight decrease to 123 m ha and 1993-94 figures showed a further decrease to 122.4 m ha. In 1993-94, the total area under cereals was 100 m ha. and under pulses was 22.4 m. hectares.
Rice is the major cereal crop among food grains and showed a gradual increase in the area and so also the wheat. But coarse grains like jowar, bajra and maize showed a de- cline in the percentage of the area. If we study the area of cultivation of food grains and non-food grains, there was a gradual shift from non-food grains to food grains. Important reasons are: the prices of food grains have been rising quite fast and the farmers have started growing food crops in a similar way they grow commercial crops like cotton, oil seed crops sugarcane, etc. Secondly, the cultivation of food grains has become highly remunerative and productive under the impact of new technology.
Among non-food grain crops, oil seeds form an important group which also includes other crops like cotton, jute, sugarcane, tobacco, tea, coffee, etc.
Depending upon the natural water resources, each region has a certain area under irrigated agriculture. But, broadly considering, two distinct irrigated ecosystems emerge.
At present, 51 million hectares of net-cropped area are irrigated by different sources, which constitutes about 35 percent of the net cultivated area. Estimates indicate that more than 56 percent of total food grain comes from irrigated ecosystems while progress has been considerably sluggish in rain-fed agriculture which still accounts for 92.8 million hectares or 65 percent of net area sown and contributes only 44 percent to national food grain production. If past trends are any indication, it may be visualized that in the future also the major gain in production, at least 80 percent of the incremental food needs required by 2025, has to come from an irrigated ecosystem where new genotypes and intensive fertilizer use will continue to play the dominant role in enhancing crop productivity
The major issues emerging in the irrigated cropping systems may be categorized into two groups- i.e., general and system specific.
The rice-wheat system is the most widely adopted cropping system in the country and has become a mainstay of cereal production. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh are now the heartland of the rice-wheat cropping systems with an estimated area of 10.5 million hectares. Despite the enormous growth of this cropping system in the country during the past few years, reports of stagnation in the productivity of these crops, with a possible decline in production in the future, have raised doubts about its sustainability. Important issues emerging as a threat to the sustainability of the rice-wheat system are:
Rice-rice is the popular cropping system in irrigated lands in humid and coastal ecosystems of Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala and it is spread over an area of six million hectares. The major issues in sustaining productivity of the rice-rice system are:
Non-availability of appropriate transplanter to mitigate labor shortage during the critical period of transplanting.
Build up of obnoxious weeds such as Echinochloa crusgalli and non-availability of suitable control measures.
In Kerala, the reduction in area is mainly attributable to the conversion of paddy lands to more profitable and less labor-intensive plantation estates. In Assam, low productivity under prevailing soil and climatic situations, poor drainage in submerged areas, low nutrient use, and iron toxicity are some of the issues of concern. The other general issues of low productivity are the build-up of pests, diseases and weeds year after year and the deterioration of soil health to a large extent.
From a viewpoint of food security and the national economy, rice-rapeseed/mustard may be considered an important cropping system. In this cropping system, the yield of Rice is satisfactory in all ecosystems, however, wide variations in the yield of mustard were recorded from one ecosystem to another. Nevertheless, the adoption of appropriate high-yielding rice and mustard varieties, adequately supported by improved production technology, ensures desired productivity of the system
Groundnut is basically a Kharif crop grown under rain fed environment, however, Rabi/summer groundnut is emerging as an important high-value crop under assured irrigation environments. The productivity of Rabi/Summer groundnut is almost double the yield obtained in the Kharif season. It has become possible to grow groundnut on well-drained low-lying fertile lands after the harvest of the preceding rice crop under assured irrigation.
Rabi/summer groundnut is grown in Periyar, Chengalpattu, Salem, Thanjavur, Coimbatore, Madurai, Arcot and Tiruchirapalli distts. of Tamil Nadu; Nalgonda, Nellore, Chittor, Kurnool, Mehaboobnagar, Anantpur, Warangal, Prakasham of Andhra Pradesh and Krishna districts of Karnataka; Cuttack and Puri districts of Orissa; coastal districts of Konkan, Marathwada region, Satara, Sangli, Pune, Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra and Junagarh district of Gujarat. The area under summer groundnut in general and rice groundnut sequence, in particular, is increasing fast in most of the west and east coastal districts of the country. Besides this, the spread of groundnut in rice fallows would make the rice-groundnut cropping system more sustainable and remunerative.
The rice-Pulses cropping system is a dominant crop rotation in Chhattisgarh, Orissa and parts of Bihar. The higher productivity of rice, the base crop in the system, is possible and also imperative for this region if suitable varieties of paddy and pulses along with proper management are considered.
Factors limiting the productivity of this cropping system in the region are as follows:-
A.Physical factors
B. Input-related factors
C. Social factors
The pearl millet-wheat is one of the most important cropping systems of the country and spreads over
(i) arid eco-region comprising, the western plain, Kachch and part of Kathiawar Peninsula having desert and saline soils and representing Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Haryana;
(ii) semi-arid eco-region comprising northern plains of Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh (Agra region), and central highlands including Aravallis, Banswara, Jaipur, and Tonk districts of Rajasthan with alluvium-derived soil and Gujarat plains and the Kathiawar Peninsula – Gujarat state, having medium and deep black soil.
Following issues are some of the concerns about sustainability:
Among maize-wheat growing areas, maize is the principal crop of Kharif season in the northern hills of the country but plains of northern states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar also have sizeable acreage under this crop.
Poor maize-wheat yield has been reported from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tripura, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. There are a number of reasons for poor yield but the most significant are:
Sorghum-wheat is one of the most prevalent cropping systems in Western regions of the Country, comprising eastern parts of Rajasthan, western and central parts of Madhya Pradesh, Western Marathwada, and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra, Southern Gujarat, Northern parts of Karnataka and Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh.
Sugarcane is grown on about 3.4 million hectares. In north India (Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Bihar), which account for 68 percent of the total area under sugarcane, sugarcane-ratoon-wheat is the most important crop sequence. The system is also gaining importance in Jorhat, Sibsagar and Sonitpur districts of Assam; Ahmedanagar and Kolhapur district of Maharashtra and Belgaum district of Karnataka. The other states where the system covers a considerable area under sugarcane-wheat are Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
Problems in the sugarcane-wheat system are:
Cotton is widely grown in alluvial soils of north India (Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh) and black cotton soils of central India (Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka). With the availability of short-duration varieties of cotton, the cotton-wheat cropping system has become dominant in North. About 70-80 percent area of cotton is covered under this system. In the Central region also, wherever irrigation is available, cotton-wheat is practiced. The major issues of concern in the cotton-wheat cropping system are:
Legume crops (pulses and oilseeds) are popular for their suitability in different cropping systems. Recent advances in the development of a large number of varieties of pulse and oilseed crops, varying largely for maturity duration, have made it possible to include them in irrigated crop sequences. The popular cropping systems are pigeon pea-wheat in Madhya Pradesh and groundnut-wheat in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, and groundnut-sorghum in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The major issues in legume-based cropping systems are:
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