Growth and Diversification of Horticulture Crops in Karnataka

With the growth of technology, modernization, and changes in food habits, agricultural cropping pattern of the country has undergone a major shift in the recent past, moving away from the cereal to non-cereal crops cultivation, especially toward the horticulture crops. Horticulture has been one of the fastest growing sectors within the larger agriculture activities in India, and the State of Karnataka is at the forefront in this context. With the help of secondary data and by employing Simpson’s Diversification Index, crop diversification toward horticulture across the districts of Karnataka was explored. Using regression growth trends, the districts have been categorized as high, medium, low, and negative growth trend of horticulture crop area, and the districts have been further regrouped according to their agro-climatic zones. The study found that the districts of Gulbarga, Raichur, Bijapur, Bidar, Koppal, Bagalkot, and Bellary showed a complete diversification toward horticulture crops, whereas the districts of Kolar, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada were found to be diversified the least. The study also explored that the districts having complete diversification toward horticulture sector were found to have devoted a lesser share of their cultivable area under horticulture crops. Also, most of the highly diversified districts have come under the dry agro-climatic zones and experienced a high growth rate of horticulture crops cultivation from triennium ending (TE) 2002-2003 to TE 2009-2010. However, the lesser diversified districts have got lesser growth rate of area under the horticulture crops, but devoted relatively a higher share of area under the crops.