Crop Diversification in Gadag District of Karnataka

The nature, extent and determinants of crop diversification have been analysed in the Gadag district of Karnataka over space and time. The area under vegetables, fruits and pulse crops has registered a higher (7–11%) growth compared to cereals, oilseeds, fibre and other crop groups (<1%). Over the years, the share of cereal crop groups has decreased significantly from 32.53 per cent to 28.81 per cent and that of fruits and vegetables has increased considerably from 0.10 per cent to 0.25 per cent for fruits and from 4.66 per cent to 7.80 per cent for vegetable crops. The transition probability matrix has indicated that over the years, horticultural crop groups have retained a higher share (92%) in terms of area under crops. The Northern Dry Zone (Gadag taluk) has been found to be more diversified with Entropy index of 0.99 and household crop richness of 3.20 compared to 0.55 and 1.90 in the Northern Transitional Zone (Shirahatti taluk), respectively. The major factors influencing crop diversification have been identified as size of landholding, gross irrigated area, and net return realised per farm.