Dynamics of Cropping Pattern in Northwestern Haryana A Spatio- Temporal Study

The present paper is an attempt to find out the spatial and temporal variation and dynamics of cropping pattern during 1998-99 to 2015-16 in Northwestern Haryana. The district wise time series data has been obtained from secondary sources. Harfindal and Simpson index have been used to find out the crop diversification and Doi’s method to compute the crop combinations in the region. The results show that cropping pattern in Northwestern Haryana has been quite different from rest of the state. In 1998-01 the dominant crops in Northwestern Haryana were wheat and cotton and these two crops covered about 65 percent area to total cropped area. Rice, mustard and bajra were other important crops grown in the region. But in rest of Haryana the dominant crops were wheat and rice followed by bajra. In 2013-16 the cropping pattern changed as area under cotton has shrunk whereas acreage of rice has increased in the region. Rice is gaining at the cost of cotton acreage in Northwestern region. But there is not much change in the crop combination pattern in the region during the study period. Northwestern part of state has had highly diversified cropping pattern and there was not much change during study period. Simpson index shows that in Northwestern Haryana cropping pattern is almost same during the study period with just a slight tilt towards foodgrains.