Factors Influencing Crop Diversification in Different Agro - Climatic Zones of West Bengal: An Application of Principal Component Analysis

The state of West Bengal has been divided into three agro-climatic regions that can further be stratified into six agro-climatic sub-regions, with specific climatic features. Each climatic sub-region (or zone) has different possibilities of crop production determined by its agro-climatic features along with demand and supply related factors. Farmers have been observed to practice crop diversification in each sub-zone. Crop diversification is an effective method of eliminating uncertainty involved in agriculture and raising farmers’ income. The present study intends to analyze the pattern of crop diversification and the factors influencing it in different agro-climatic zones of West Bengal. The Simpson’s index has been used to estimate diversification. The results show that all the zones (except Eastern Plateau & Hilly zone), as well as the state of West Bengal as a whole, have witnessed -rising crop diversification since the new millennium compared to the nineties. The Principal Component Regression (PCR) has been used to identify the factors that influence the shift in cropping pattern in each agro-climatic zone. Eleven variables have been included in the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The first four Eigenvalues capture maximum variability and the corresponding four components have been selected for PCR. Both the supply-side and the demand-side variables have been taken into consideration for analyzing PCA. The demand-side factors like the size of the urban population, per capita income and supply-side variables such as the proportion of small landholders, area under High Yielding Varieties (HYV) and density of markets play a significant role in determining crop diversification in all the agro climatic zones (except ‘Eastern Plateau and Hilly zone’).