Md Hasanur Jaman , Subha Roy , Jaya Chatterjee , Souvik Das , Prakash Mistri , Somasis Sengupta
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
CONTEXT
The choice of crops for cultivation should be ideally based on the appropriateness of a specific parcel of land for a particular crop. This is a multi-criteria problem associated with a host of natural conditioning variables including topography, climate and pedology. However, in a country like India, where agriculture is often traditional and subsistence-based, the farmers' choice of crop selection is usually influenced by numerous factors and therefore, may not be explained solely by the spatial variation in the agricultural land suitability.
OBJECTIVE
This study is an attempt to understand the intricacies involved in the farmers' selection of crops by integrating the dual aspects of agricultural land suitability and the farmers' understanding of the land. The Kumari River Basin in eastern India has been selected for this study. This area is characterized by acute scarcity of water.
METHODS
The basic methodology involved extracting systematic information on conditional factors such as topography, climate and soil. After normalizing different parameters by the Fuzzy Membership Function, a reiterative Principal Component Analysis modified Analytical Hierarchy Process was applied to these conditional rasters to derive an index of agricultural land suitability of the studied basin. Furthermore, the crop-specific suitability of paddy and maize was also considered by employing the Boolean Logic.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
It is observed that the lower domain of the Kumari Basin is characterized by greater land suitability as compared to the upper and middle domains and the most important factors behind this distribution include slope, potential evapotranspiration and soil fertility. Crop-specific land suitability suggests that, by and large, the suitability of maize is greater than that of paddy in the basin, except for the lower domain where paddy is more suitable to cultivate. However, a study of the perception of the local farmers reveals that although they are aware of this fact, they prefer paddy over maize and are more inclined towards cultivating paddy. The chief reasons cited by them include the high demand for paddy in the area and the absence of a Minimum Support Price for maize.
SIGNIFICANCE
This study is possibly an instance where the agricultural land suitability analysis has been substantiated by a field-based perception survey of the farmers which is expected to help in understanding the complexities of crop selection in this part of India.
期刊介绍：
Agricultural Systems is an international journal that deals with interactions - among the components of agricultural systems, among hierarchical levels of agricultural systems, between agricultural and other land use systems, and between agricultural systems and their natural, social and economic environments.
The scope includes the development and application of systems analysis methodologies in the following areas:
Systems approaches in the sustainable intensification of agriculture; pathways for sustainable intensification; crop-livestock integration; farm-level resource allocation; quantification of benefits and trade-offs at farm to landscape levels; integrative, participatory and dynamic modelling approaches for qualitative and quantitative assessments of agricultural systems and decision making;
The interactions between agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes; the multiple services of agricultural systems; food security and the environment;
Global change and adaptation science; transformational adaptations as driven by changes in climate, policy, values and attitudes influencing the design of farming systems;
Development and application of farming systems design tools and methods for impact, scenario and case study analysis; managing the complexities of dynamic agricultural systems; innovation systems and multi stakeholder arrangements that support or promote change and (or) inform policy decisions.
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