Delineation of crop combination region and changing pattern of cropping intensity: A Geographical Analysis in Ghatal sub-division, Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal Mr. Bera Sudip1,*, Dr. Chatterjee Nilanjana Das2 1Research scholar, Department of Geography and Environment Management, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore-721102, West Bengal, India 2Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environment Management, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore-721102, West Bengal, India, nilanjana_vu@mail.vidyasagar.ac.in *Corresponding Author Email: sudip91geo@gmail.com
Online published on 15 May, 2019. Abstract Agriculture plays a foremost role in the Indian economy from the historic time. After the green revolution, production of agriculture has gradually increase due to the enhancement of modern agricultural technology such as use of HYV seeds, chemical fertilizer, different types of modern agricultural instruments etc. Demarcation of the agricultural region, spatial relation of crops in association with others crop is better establishedby the crop combination technique. Therefore, the present study has been attempted to identify region of crop combination, cropping pattern and cropping intensity analysis of five different Community Development (C.D.) Block in Ghatal Sub-division under Paschim Medinipur district. The study also tries to find out the significant determinants and constrain of agriculture production and delineation of an agricultural region in this area. Different secondary data has been used in the present study. Weaver's (1954) Least Square method has been adopted to delineation of crop combination region. Finally, six crop combination (i.e. Potato, Vegetable, Jute, Spices, Chilli and Dhanicha) regions were found in this study area. Thereafter, the result of crop combination was spatial mapping for demarcation of crop combination region with the help of GIS environment using ArcGIS and ERDAS Software. The analysis shows that the cropping intensity is gradually decreasing from the year 2003-04 to 2010–11. The result concludes that Ghatal block holds the best crops combination comparatively than other blocks. Top Keywords Crop combination, cropping intensity, principal crops, Weaver's method, GIS techniques, Ghatal sub-division. Top |