Evaluation of Crop Diversification on Indian Farming Practices: A Panel Regression Approach

Crop diversification is considered as a means to promote agricultural development while lowering its environmental implications. Diversified food production must substantially increase to fulfil the needs of food security and sustainability for the world’s future population. This study identified the finer details of diversification in India’s 20 agriculturally prosperous states through analyzing the regional trends in agricultural diversification. The analysis, which covered the period from 1971–1972 to 2017–2018, showed that agricultural diversification has taken place in several states of India. This study revealed that, due to the significant heterogeneity in agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions, the type of diversification varies among the regions. In these periods, cash- crop percentage in the gross-cropped area has increased from 18 percent to 37 percent, reflecting a major impact on the Shannon-Wiener diversification index. Crop diversification has been influenced by rural literacy, irrigation intensity, road infrastructure, per-capita, gross-state-domestic products, regional-rural-branch intensity, rainfall deviation, credit intensity, and India’s growing urban population, whereas cropping intensity has not affected crop diversification in India.