Crop diversification in West Bengal: farmers initiatives.
Biswas B. C., Tewatia R. K., Shukla D. K.
Author Affiliation: The Fertiliser Association of India, FAI House, 10 Shaheed Jit Singh Marg, New Delhi, India.
Indian Journal of Fertilisers 4 : 31-43
Abstract : West Bengal, the most densly populated major state of the country, houses more than 8% (8 crores) population in about 2.5% geographical area of the country. It has a population density of more than 904 per sq. km. About 95% of its farmers belong to small and marginal category. Rice grown in three seasons, namely, aus, aman and boro is the main crop. It occupies about 5.0 mha. Other crops grown are jute, potato, wheat, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane, tobacco, silk, tea, orange, various other fruits, flowers and vegetables. It ranks first in rice, jute, vegetable, inland fishery and betel vine. It occupies second position in potato, tea and is famous for orange, silk, mango, date palm and palmiry palm gur (jaggery), etc. It is self-sufficient in rice but deficient in pulses and oilseeds. Concerted efforts are on for quite sometimes to increase pulses and oilseeds production but very little success has been made thus far because cultivation of these crops encountered serious disease and pest infestation. And therefore, the cultivations of these crops are not economically attractive. However, the state made a real headways in crop diversification by growing various traditional and non-traditional vegetables, fruits, flowers, commercial crops like pan (betel vines), tea, silk, tobacco, arecanut, coconut, sugarcane and so on. The paper provides an account of successful endeavour of randomly selected small and marginal farmers of different districts of the state in crop diversification with the help of scientific technology that made their farming a real profitable venture.