Impact of cropping pattern on agricultural production

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to examine the effect of cropping pattern along with other yield increasing inputs upon agricultural production. The paper first compares the cropping pattern index with fertilizer, irrigation and agricultural output per hectare. Although the visual inspection of data indicates that certain conflicting cases exist with respect to changes in yield and the cropping pattern effect, the regression analysis shows that higher the cropping pattern index, the higher will be yields ceteris paribus. This implies that marginal manipulations in the cropping pattern in a region can increase agricultural productivity significantly even if fertilizer and irrigation use remain unchanged.