Crop Diversification Strategy against Stunting Diversification Index: An Evidence from West Bengal, India

Abstract

The food basket of the world is diversifying towards high-value crops. A diversified cropping system offers multifaceted opportunities to the farmers. The nature of diversification in developing countries is significantly different at both farming and cropping levels; thus, it is felt important to investigate such a study at different land size holding. This study is conducted to examine the trends of crop diversification under different land size classes in the state of West Bengal, which assumes as a representative image of India. The study uses secondary data obtained from Agriculture Census for the year 1995-96 and 2015-16. Gibbs-Martin’s technique is employed for the calculation of the diversification index. Overall analyses reveal that the stunting change in diversification is noted in marginal, small, large, and all land classes. The implication of such growth pushes the rural economy in a skewed direction.