CROP CONCENTRATION, CROPPING INTENSITY AND AGRICULTURAL EFFICIENCY IN COMMAND AREA IN RAJASTHAN
Som Prakash
Research Scholar, Dr. Rajender Kumar Meghwnshi S.K. (P.G.) College Gharsana (Associate Prof. Dept. of Geog.)
Abstract- The present study is an attempt to analyze some important attributes of the cropping land use system of command area western Rajasthan. Crop concentration is an important indicator of prevalent cropping pattern in any Geographical unit and hence the key determinant of the agricultural economy. Similarly, cropping intensity is also a vital indicator of agricultural development. Agricultural efficiency explains the yield per unit area of land and thus is an important attribute of agricultural system. The analysis of the data reveals that Food Grains, Cereals, Pulses and Oilseeds cultivation are dominant in command area and show high levels of concentration, while as Food Grains and Oilseeds dominate the agricultural landscape of command area districts province of the state. Due to double-cropping favorable climate, crop intensity is high in the districts of Ganganagar and Hnumangarh. Since agricultural efficiency is function of productivity, therefore on account of high levels of productivity, agricultural efficiency is more in districts region of the command area.
1. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is a primary economic and productive activity on earth surface which provides fundamental sustain to all living beings. Agriculture has remained the prime sector of Indian economy in view of its major share in employment and livelihood creation. Though, it has played a significant role in poverty alleviation, meeting the food requirements of the existing population and providing raw materials to various industries but its share in gross domestic production of the nation has continuously declined over the period. Agriculture demand land, labour, capital and energy inputs as basic requirement. Chemical fertilizers and agricultural machineries are the vital inputs of agriculture. Indian agriculture has achieved remarkable progress in the level of agricultural mechanization.
Irrigation is the backbone of agriculture.
Timely and adequate water supply is necessary for healthy agriculture.
Irrigation plays an important role in agricultural development of the country.
Its influence on agricultural productivity and leads to develop the economy in area where rainfall is plentiful and well- distributed over the year. But in the study area there is rain uncertainty and irregularity. Therefore artificial irrigation is requiring for the agricultural production and to expand the area under cultivation. Irrigation provides assured supply of water. Irrigation plays important role in increase the cropping intensity and
crop production. It also makes favourable condition to introduction of new technology and crop diversification of crops. Cropping Intensity is defined as an extent to which the net area sown has been cropped or renowned in the one agricultural year. Irrigation is prime factors which controlled the cropping intensity. The flexibility in selecting appropriate crop pattern is also enhanced when irrigation facilities make water available in a controllable manner farm to the farmers throughout the year.
Therefore study of irrigation development is important to increase the cropping intensity of agricultural region. This pattern of crops results in differential crop concentrations. The different cropping pattern is shaped by various factors, viz;
physical factors such as soil, climate, technological factors like irrigation, improved varieties of seeds, availability of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals;
Institutional factors like land reform, consolidation of holdings, credit facilities, price structure, procurement policies and storage facilities and other factors like the rate of return, agro-climatic conditions, farm programmes, conservation programmes, and environmental regulations . Cropping intensity depicts the feasibility of land for cultivation more than once in a year. Cropping intensity is an indicator of agricultural development.
The high cropping intensity means that all the factors affecting crop cultivation
are favourable for double or triple cropping, while as low cropping intensity reflects the same in opposite direction.
Agricultural efficiency is a vital indicator of the agricultural development as it is a scientific device to study the inherent fertility, productivity and capability of land. There are numerous factors which influence the agriculture efficiency of land including physical, social, economic and techno-organizational. The combined effect of these factors manifests itself in per acre yields as well as the volume of production in any given region.
Agriculture is the main occupation for the people of command area. About 65 percent of the people are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood.
2. STUDY AREA
The command area is located north west part in Rajasthan. The study region is situated in North West Rajasthan state and lies in between 24°36´ to 29°20´
north latitudes and 69°30´ to 74°33´ east longitudes. At command area IGNP projection Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner, Churu, Barmer, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur districts. Being located in the terrain and the desert, the climent has been characterized by the climent for the tropical desert, due to farmine and drought, there was a general geographic phenomenon, but due to availability of irrigation facility through the project, changes come as a result of this change the cultural environment is also affected.
Figure- 01 Location map of study area
Fig. 1
3. MATERIALS AND METHODS 3.1. Materials
The present research work is primarily based on secondary data. The data
related to district-wise actual area under various crops for the years of 2015-16 were collected from Derector of economic and statistics Jaipur Rajasthan.
3.2. Methods
Step 1:- Identification of the variables:- The area under three major Food Grains, Cereals, Pulses, Oilseeds and Others has been taken for the accomplishment of the objective taken for the study.
Step 2:- For the study of distributional pattern of crops, an index of crop concentration has been worked out. The index has been calculated by the formula;
Index of concentration
=
.….. (i)
Step 3:- Bhatia’s method (1963) has been used to find out the district wise agricultural efficiency in the state and thus regional variations have been found.
Agricultural efficiency was calculated by the following formula.
Iycrop = × 100 Agricultural efficiency ‘Ei’=
…….. (ii) Where ‘Ei’ is the agricultural efficiency; ‘Iycrop’ is the yield index of various crops; Ca, Cb, Cc and Cd is the percentage of crop land under different crops; Ycrop - hectare yield of crop in an enumeration; Yr - hectare yield of crop in the entire region.
Step 4:-
The levels of concentration and agricultural efficiency have been worked out and the maps choropleth map has used to depict spatial variations in the variables taken for the study area.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:- 4.1. Crop concentration (2015-16) TABLE 1: in the relationship between density of individual crops in the districts and the corresponding density for the command area as a whole has been studied. The objective of the study of crop concentration pattern is to differentiate the areas of high and low density of the individual crops in the different parts of the command area. The details of crop concentration are presented in the table 1 and 2 of concentration of major crops grown in commeand area.
Table-01
Districts
Index value of crop concentration
Food Grains
Cereals Pulses Oilseeds Others Intensity
Ganganagar 1.20 1.35 0.24 1.84 0.06 167
Hanumangar h
1.26 1.65 0.24 1.62 0.05 152
Jaisalmer 1.00 0.02 0.31 0.72 0.04 128
Jodhpur 0.58 0.82 0.02 1.79 0.06 123
Bikaner 1.23 1.60 0.23 1.07 0.03 124
Churu 1.15 0.87 0.17 1.51 0.02 119
Barmer 0.44 0.72 0.001 0.67 0.63 112
State Average
1.21 0.87 0.21 0.34 0.23 148
Source: Using the formula (ii) for data obtained from Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Rajasthan Jaipur 2015
Table-02 Crop
Name
Index value
Levels of
concentration Under Districts Food
Grains
>1.00 High Gangangar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner, Churu 0.60-
1.00
Medium Jaisalmer,
< 0.60 Low Barmer, Jodhpur
Cereals >1.00 High Gangangar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner 0.50-100 Medium Churu, Jodhpur, Barmer
< 0.50 Low , Jaisalmer
Pulses >0.20 High Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Gangangar, Hanumangarh
0.10-
0.20 Medium Jaisalmer, Bikaner
< 0.10 Low Jodhpur, Barmer
Oilseeds >1.00 High Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu,. Gangangar, Hanumangarh
0.70- 1.00
Medium Low Jaisalmer,
< .70 Low Barmer,
Others >0.10 Barmer,
0.05-
0.10
Gangangar, Hanumangarh, Jodhpur
< 0.05 Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Bikaner 4.2. Cropping Intensity (2015-16)
Cropping intensity depicts the feasibility of land for cultivation more than once in a year and is calculated by using the following formula.
Cropping intensity is an indicator of agricultural development. The high cropping intensity reveals that all the factors affecting crop cultivation are
favourable for double, while as low cropping intensity reflects the same in opposite direction. The cropping intensity in Command area is shown in table 1. It is evident from the table that on an average the cropping intensity for the command area is 148 means the double cropping is practiced on forty percent of net sown area. The maximum cropping intensity is found in Command area.
Followed by Ganganagar (167), Hanumangarh (152) districts etc. while as lowest cropping intensity is found in Churu (119), Barmer (112) districts. The variation in cropping intensity is because of differential climatic regimes found in command area. While command area has the tropical type of climate. The spatial variation in cropping intensity is depicted in figure 2.
Figure - 2
Fig. 2: Cropping Intensity in command area 4.3. Agricultural efficiency (2015-16)
Agricultural efficiency is a scientific measure to analyze the inherent fertility, productivity and capability of land. There are various factors which influence the agriculture efficiency of land including physical, socio-economic and techno- organizational. The combined and
cumulative effect of these factors manifests itself in per unit yields as well as volume of production in any given Geographical area/region. Bhatia’s method (1963) has been used to find out the agricultural efficiency. The details are given in the figure 3 table 3. Table 3:
Levels of agricultural efficiency (2015-16) TABLE 1: INDEX OF CONCENTRATION OF MAJOR CROPS GROWN IN COMMEAND
AREA
Districts
Index value of crop concentration
Food
Grains Cereals Pulses Oilseeds Others Efficiency
Ganganagar 1.20 1.35 0.04 1.84 0.06 59.77
Hanumangarh 1.26 1.65 0.04 1.62 0.05 65.41
Jaisalmer 1.00 0.02 0.31 0.72 0.04 78.06
Jodhpur 0.58 0.82 0.02 1.79 0.06 80.80
Bikaner 1.23 1.60 0.23 1.07 0.03 80.56
Churu 1.15 0.87 0.17 1.51 0.02 83.95
Barmer 0.44 0.72 0.001 0.67 0.63 89.24
State
Average 1.21 0.87 0.21 0.34 0.23 86.70
Source: Using the formula (ii) for data obtained from Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Rajasthan Jaipur 2015
From the table 3, it is evident that the value of agricultural efficiency for the command area is 86.70 though it is more in Barmer (89.32) Churu (83.95) Jodhpur
(80.80) and Bikaner (80.56) districts etc.
Since agricultural efficiency is the function of productivity the variation in the efficiency is explained by the
productivity differences between the different districts of the command area.
The levels of agricultural efficiency in that state are shown in the figure 3.
Figure - 3
Fig. 3: Agricultural Efficiency in command area
5. CONCLUSION
The technique for measuring cropping intensity and agricultural efficiency is very useful tool for generalizing the relationship between acre-yield and share of cropland. The cropping intensity analysis reflects the impact of physical and socio-economic factors affecting the cropping land use. The crop concentration analysis reflects that food grains and oilseeds the agricultural landscape of the five districts of command area Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner, Churu and Jodhpur. While as foodgarin, Cereals and Oilseeds shows high levels of concentration in command area of the state because of the geo- climatic and physical variations.
Irrigation of canals due to high intensity of crop in districts of Ganganagar and Hanumangarh. The agricultural efficiency shows regional variations because of productivity differences between the districts of the command area. The high agricultural efficiency in Jodhpur is on account of comparatively higher productivity (non irrigeted area) area than districts.
6. SUGGESTIONS
1. The infrastructural facilities must be improved especially in command area districts to enhance their agricultural efficiency.
2. High yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds and seeds which require short growing season must be
introduced in agriculturally backward districts in order to raise the productivity.
3. A comprehensive agricultural policy is the need of the hour to look into the loopholes confronting agricultural development of the command area.
4. Irrigation in association with mechanical and biochemical input has influenced the land use in the region.
5. The study lays emphasis on national policy and pianing of land use for promotion of agri-business to create employment in rural area, discourage migration from rural to urban area and create an optimum growth rate of agriculture.
6. It involves balanced water allowance, optimum and conjunctive use of surface and ground water resources. Lining and disiltation of water courses must be done.
7. On farm water management should include efficient land leveling and shaping efficient design and layout of irrigation methods, scientific scheduling of irrigation water under booth adequate and deficit water supplies and crop planning for optimal use limited water resources of the arid region.
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