Extent of Crop Diversification across Different Farm Size Groups in the North Bank Plains Zone of Assam

Abstract

Crop Diversification is a strategy to optimize the use of land, water and other farm resources particularly for risk reduction, stabilization of farm income, augmenting farm employment and overall agricultural development in general. The study was undertaken to find out the extent of crop diversification across different farm size groups in the North Bank Plains Zone (NBPZ) of Assam. To find the extent of crop diversification of farmers across different farm size groups two districts viz. Lakhimpur and Sonitpur were selected randomly with a sample size of 160 farmers (80 belonging from Lakhimpur district and 80 belonging from Sonitpur district) administered with the Simpson Index of Diversity [1]. The statistical techniques employed were frequency (f), mean (X), percentage (%). The findings suggested that in the pooled sample of farmers, majority of the respondents (64.37%) were in medium crop diversification category followed by 20.00 per cent in high and 15.63 per cent in low crop diversification category. Similarly, majority of the respondents were in medium crop diversification category in all the individual categories of farmer i.e., marginal, small and medium farmers respectively. This study will be useful to the extension functionaries, agriculture and allied departments to modify and quantify their ways and means to educate the farmers for adoption of diversification.