Measuring crop diversification in case of sugarcane in West Bengal
Abstract:
In India, diversification towards horticulture was mainly recognised in the
1990s. Crop diversification is a risk management strategy for the farming
community and an important step for poverty alleviation and transition
from subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture. Crop
diversification is a solution to stabilise and raise farm income, increase
employment opportunities, boost exports and conserve and enhance
natural resource base. Diversification may be broadly defined as a shift of
resources from low value added agriculture to high value added agriculture.
In order to measure crop diversification for a particular crop, different
types of Crop Diversification Indices (CDI) are used. The CDI is an index
of concentration and has a direct relationship with diversification such that
a zero value indicates specialization and a value greater than zero signifies
crop diversification. The extent of crop diversification at a given point of
time may be examined by several indices. Among these indices,
Herfindahl Index (HI), Simpson Index (SI) and Entropy Index (EI) are
widely used in case of crop diversification. In this paper we want to see
whether crop diversification or crop concentration takes place in case of
sugarcane in different districts of West Bengal by using secondary data.
That’s why we consider Herfindahl Index (HI) and Simpson Index (SI) to
measure crop diversification or crop concentration in different parts of
West Bengal by using secondary data.
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