Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 2
(Continued)
Particulars
Drip adopters
Non-adopters
Before
After
Before
After
Percentage of area irrigated under drip to gross
irrigated area (%)
96.94
***, ** and * indicate values are significantly dif ferent at 1%, 5% and 10% levels from the
corresponding values of control village.
a Cropping intensity is defined as the ratio of gross cropped area to net sown area and ex-
pressed as percentage.
b Irrigation intensity is the ratio of gross irrigated area to net irrigated area and expressed as
percentage.
1.4.2 CROPPING PATTERN
An attempt was made to find whether drip irrigation had induced a certain new crop-
ping system or the crops had followed drip technology as a response to the growing
water scarcity? The cropping pattern, that is, proportion of area under different crops,
is a good indicator of the development of resource endowments and agricultural pro-
duction. It is expected that drip method of irrigation helps in the development of water
resource potential and also helps the farmers to get more crop and income per drop of
water.
The longitudinal analysis of cropping pattern across farm households and villages
revealed that the adoption of drip irrigation is motivated my many factors. The two
major constraints limiting agricultural production are human labor and water scarcity.
These made the farmers to alter their cropping pattern towards less labor and water in-
tensive crops. Resource poor farmers go in for rainfed crops. However, the big farmers
who have capital access adopt various water management and coping strategies. One
of the important coping strategies or rather effi cient water management technologies
is adoption of drip irrigation. Thus, in regions where there is severe water and labor
scarcity, fi rst there is a shift from labor and water intensive crops such as vegetables,
sugarcane, cotton, paddy to less labor intensive crops such as coconut, takes place
and followed by drip adoption. As drip irrigation saves human labor substantially by
reduction in operations such as irrigation and weeding, water-loving crops such as
banana and grapes are planted followed by drip irrigation. Signifi cant changes in crop-
ping pattern are observed. It is evident that over a period of time, the water and labor
intensive crops like paddy, sugarcane and vegetables area were signifi cantly reduced
in drip village. However, the area under coconut has increased from 45% to 88% over
time (Table 3). Increase in area under coconut is also seen among the nonadopters in
the control village implying changes in the cropping pattern. Thus, the micro irrigation
could be promoted in regions with high water and labor scarcity. As cropping pattern
decides the adoption and suitability of drip irrigation, widespread adoption of micro
irrigation could be promoted in the regions where shift towards crops like coconut,
banana are common.
 
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