Abstract

Initiation of some institutional and technological changes mainly the Operation Barga and the introduction of high yielding varieties during the eighties turned West Bengal into a progressive food grain producing state in India. But of late a decelerating tendency in West Bengal agriculture has been noticed especially in terms of growth production of major crops and also the total agricultural production. In this circumstance diversification of agricultural activities appears to be an important contributing factor towards the enhancement of total agricultural production and productivity. The study revealed that the cropping pattern in West Bengal in terms of allocation of acreage had been skewed towards food grain. However, during the last fifteen to twenty years some important crops (boro rice, potato, oilseeds, especially mustard) emerged as the main crop for the farmers. The cropping pattern turned against pulses, coarse cereals and sugarcane. It was also found that in the cropping pattern changes the expansion effect could explain 54.69% of the gross cropped area and the remaining 45.31% of the gross cropped area was due to the substitution effect.

Key words: Crop diversification, growth, crop concentration, expansion effect, substitution effect.