Levels of Horticulture Development Using Z- Transformation Analysis in Kashmir Valley, Jammu & Kashmir

Horticulture plays a significant role in the economy of Kashmir valley.Since past two decades,due to increasing demand and other geographical factors, the agricultural cropping pattern of the valley has shown a tremendous shift from cereal to non-cereal crops,especially toward horticultural crops.Horticulture sector in the valley is economically viable, as there is high profit margin of investment in this sector. The gap between Revenue from the sale of output and costs per unit of land in this sector is high. This paper attempts to show the levels of horticulture development in terms of two parameters i.e. area under major horticultural crops and production of major horticultural crops for the year 2017-2018. Z-Score technique has been employed in order to show the levels of horticultural development. The levels of development have been calculated for both parameter,area under horticultural crops and production of horticultural crops. All the 10 districts of Kashmir valley have been categorized into 3 categoriesi.e. high, medium and low on the basis of mean composite Z-Score.The results show that the district of Kulgam,Pulwama,Ganderbal and Budgam fall in high level category for both parameters. The district of Srinagar and Bandipora show low level of development on the basis of Z-Score analysis.