Agriculture Practices and Its Association with Livestock in Hilly Areas of West Bengal

The present study was done to evaluate the socio-economic condition as well as existing farming system practised in hilly areas of West Bengal. Data were obtained by formal interview using a pretested structured questionnaire. Level of crop diversification, animal rearing pattern and income from individual sector were compared among different land holdings. Most of the farmers practice medium level (<0.5 to >0.7) of crop diversification. The percent wise allocation of gross cropped area was maximum for cereals (57.79%), followed by vegetable (22.15%) and plantation (6.67%). This trend is similar for all categories of farmers. Non-descript cows constituted the major population of dairy animals followed by cross-breeds, while few farmers are getting their maximum return from piggery. The diversification of animals rearing varied as various communities living at different altitudes. Overall, livestock constitutes 19.65 % of total income, but in case of large farmers it was 25.06%. Keyword: Crop diversification, Hill agriculture, Integrated Farming system, Livestock AICRP on Integrated Farming Systems, BCKV, Kalyani, Nadia, 741235 University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Nadia, 741235 *Corresponding author’s E-mail: manabbckv@gmail.com INTRODUCTION Globalization of market and change in agriculture trade and tariff policies called for drastic innovative changes of existing farming systems. In this era of stagnation and falling profitability of crop farming (Kumar et al. 2006), diversification of crop based agriculture with introduction of dairy, goatery, fishery, poultry, duckery, etc. has become imperative. The hilly areas of West Bengal constrained with the more availability of good and large extent of agricultural land. Agriculture along with animal rearing is the usual practice of total farming system. Lack of irrigation facility and lack of facilities for modern integrated farming are the major factor for low productivity. Yet the majority of the families depend solely on agriculture and allied activities to meet their livelihood. Thus a study is taken to evaluate the predominant farming systems in hilly areas of West Bengal. MATERIALS AND METHODS The hilly areas of West Bengal covering some parts of Darjeeling district is taken as study area. It is a position of the hill zone of West Bengal with an average elevation of 1249 m above mean sea level with steep slopes. The soils are soft and loose in character Information gathered from the farmers at different villages to evaluate their socioeconomic status particularly, how the resources are well managed to meet their livelihood. Data were collected through formal interview using a pretested structured questionnaire from farmer by multi-stage stratified random sampling method. In the first stage, four blocks (Kalimpong-I, Kalimpong-II, Ronglirongliot and Garubathan) were selected randomly from the hilly areas of West Bengal. Three villages were randomly selected from each of the selected blocks. Finally six farmers were randomly selected from each of the villages. The farmers are divided into four categories according to their land holding viz. marginal (< 0.5 ha), small (>0.5 ha to <= 1 ha), medium (> 1 ha and <= 1.5 ha) and large (> 1.5 ha). The data were collected during the agricultural year 2011. Crop diversification index was calculated by using Simpson Index of diversity referred by Joshi et al. (2003). Simpson index of diversity: I i = 1(ΣSi)(ΣSi) Where Si is the share of crop ‘i’ in gross cropped area. A high Simpson index indicates greater crop Indian Journal of Hill Farming 25(1):53-57 Available online at www.kiran. nic.in