Abstract:

Agrarian land use is one of the basic natural resources. It forms the basis for all geographical, environmental, human and commercial activities. Land is an imperative input in agronomic sector, but yield agronomic crops mainly depends upon the fertility of land for raising different crops. Cropping pattern is the fundamental component of agronomic land use. Cropping pattern means the proportion of area under various crops at a point of time (Chavhan 2020; Chavhan & Salunke et.al 2019). The cropping pattern of India progressively modified since 1950-51 from food grain crops to non- food grain crops. During 1950-51 the share of cereals and pulses in the Total cultivated area was 61.10 percent and 15.60 percent, which got reduced to 52.63 percent and 12.86 percent respectively during 2019-20. Whereas the increase was observed in the share of oilseeds 8.19% to 13.79% Sugarcane 1.30% to 2.30%, Fruits and Vegetables 1.70% to 4.75% (Chavhan 2013; Chavhan 2019.). The cropping pattern of study region was based on the traditional system of the existence farming without any surplus. But with the advent of New Agricultural Strategy, there has been the complementary relationship between the commercialization and cropping pattern of the study region. The farmers are gradually diversifying to commercial crops for the sake of higher earnings. (Chavhan, 2019/9). The aim of the present paper is to find out the changes in cropping pattern and its diversification in study area. This paper will also give some suggestion for improving the cropping pattern and diversification method to useful for development of the agriculturist and its relation with regional geographical development of selected region of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Mixture of crops in one agricultural land is more profitable to change in unstable economics condition of agriculturist in study area.