Comparative Study on Crop Diversification in Tribal and Non-tribal Area of Chhattisgarh, India

This paper aims to measure crop diversification for a uniform data set of 21 year in tribal and non-tribal area which includes eight districts of Chhsttisgarh state of India namely Bastar, Kondagaon, Balrampur and Surguja (In tribal region) and Raipur, Rajnandgaon, Durg and Dhamtari (in Non-tribal region). At the same time it focuses on status and changing pattern of crop diversification in the districts with a comparative outlook of both. Data used for the study were collected from year 2001 to 2022 and whole study was divided in to seven periods and separate analysis was done for all period. Simpson index were used to measure the crop diversification in the districts for comparative study. Results of the study shows complete diversification was found in the tribal area in all period through all index and likewise in Surguja and Balrampur district crop specialization was found more than Durg and Raipur districts of non-tribal area. During the study I was found that higher indices observed in the tribal area than non-tribal area. The results have revealed that in almost all crops group very low diversification indices were observed. The study has suggested that despite plenty of natural resources available in the state, the economic improvement of farmers is in infancy. Pre-requisite infrastructural facilities like cheap sources of irrigation water (assured irrigation as the monsoon in the present decade had been erratic and scanty rainfall) and extension of technological know-how (quality seeds and fertilizers), may acts as catalyst in diversification of agriculture towards high-valued crops. These developmental efforts may be helpful in fetching good incomes by the cultivators.