What determines crop diversification in North‐East zone of India?

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Chinmaya Ranjan Kumar,Chittaranjan Nayak,Ashis Kumar Pradhan
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2450

ACADEMIC PAPER

What determines crop diversification in North-East zone

of India?

Chinmaya Ranjan Kumar

1

| Chittaranjan Nayak

1

| Ashis Kumar Pradhan

2

1

Department of Economics, Ravenshaw

University, Cuttack, India

2

Department of Humanities, Maulana Azad

National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, India

Correspondence

Ashis Kumar Pradhan, Department of

Humanities, Maulana Azad National Institute

of Technology, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Email: ashiskumarprdhn@gmail.com

In this paper we probe the determinants of crop diversification agricultural technique

for the North-Eastern region/zone (NER/NEZ) of India. We use a balanced panel data

for the period 1990 through 2015 subject to the availability of the data and employ

the cointegration and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) models to identify the

variables that promote the requirement of crop diversification technique for NEZ of

India. Our findings show the evidence of cointegration among the variables included

in the system and the results of DOLS model explain that agricultural credit, and

cropping intensity positively explain the crop diversification while fertilizers, rural

road density, and operational holdings are negatively related to crop diversification

for north eastern states of India. Our results further merit the demand of effective

government policies pertaining to agriculture so that the agricultural output of NEZ

and farm earnings of the agriculturists can be increased.

1|INTRODUCTION

Although agriculture is the most important economic sector, the

North-eastern region/zone

1

(NER/NEZ) of India is facing multifarious

challenges pertaining to this sector. Approximately, 77% of the total

population residing in this region relies on this sector as the main

source of livelihood (Khou & Mothilal, 2018). However, the potential

of the NEZ in the spheres of agriculture, horticulture, animal hus-

bandry, and fisheries is hindered by their low levels of productivity

and entrepreneurship (Chatterjee et al., 2006). Additionally, other dif-

ficulties faced by the small farmers of NEZ are inadequate collateral

for getting bank loan, high input cost for crop cultivation, marketing

bottlenecks, and low returns. Therefore, farming in India is character-

ized by poor farmers, fragmented landholdings, minimum farm mecha-

nization, traditional agricultural practices, low use of inputs, and poor

market linkage. All these persisting problems resulted in poor perfor-

mance of the sector in spite of robust overall economic growth, lead-

ing to farmers continuing in a low investment and low return

production cycle, increasing agrarian distress, forced migration,

farmers' suicides, and reduced income from agricultural activities

(Birthal, Hazrana, & Negi, 2020).

To plaid the rising distress in agricultural sector, agricultural diver-

sification may be one of the several pathways of agricultural develop-

ment (Birthal, 2006, Nayak & Kumar, 2018). Diversification-led

growth is expected to generate enormous income and employment

opportunities for the farmers, especially smallholders and rural

laborers (De & Chattopadhyay, 2010). The NEZ has an affable agro-

climatic environment favoring cultivation of a variety of seasonal and

off-season crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, spices, aromatic

and medicinal plants, plantation crops, and so forth (Nakro &

Khiki, 2006). This region has considerable potential to grow, and con-

tribute toward improving farm incomes, enhancing food and nutrition

security, reducing rural poverty, and accelerating the overall economic

growth of the region and can catapult from the existing subsistence to

commercial agriculture through agricultural diversification.

Crop diversification is identified as a good alternative to deal with

persistent challenges and to increase the overall yield in these regions

(Haque, Bhattacharya, Sinha, Kalra, & Thomas, 2010; Kar, Singh, &

Verma, 2004). Diversification improves the long-term viability of agri-

culture by enhancing the profitability and overall stability of the sector

(Guvele, 2001; Joshi, 2006; Kasem & Thapa, 2011).

There has been a notable change in the consumption pattern of peo-

ple from cereals to in favor of non-cereals crops. Crop diversification is a

way to meet this kind of transformation in the consumption pattern.

Through crop diversification, a variety of remunerative crops are pro-

duced in order to minimize the risk and the production of a variety of

crops can be expanded. Furthermore, rise in income and changing con-

sumption patterns lead to increase in the expenditure elasticities for

Received: 12 July 2020 Revised: 11 August 2020 Accepted: 30 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2450

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2450. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2450