Dynamics of Land Use Pattern in Himachal Pradesh
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Date
2022-01-07
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Palampur
Abstract
The status of land use pattern broadly reflects the process of development of a region. In a state like
Himachal Pradesh where nearly 60 per cent of population depends upon agriculture as their main source of
livelihood, it is a major land demanding activity. The stagnation of land under cultivation has become a severe
problem due to unrelenting demographic pressure and because of increasing diversion of land from agriculture to
non-agricultural uses. Therefore, the present research was carried out to study the dynamics of land use pattern in
three agro-climatic zones (Zone I, II and III) of the state. The study was based on both secondary and primary data.
The secondary data on land use for the period 1972-73 to 2018-19 were collected from different publications of
Government of HP and GOI. Further, the data were grouped in four periods viz. period I ( TE 1974-75 to 1988-89),
period II ( TE 1989-90 to 2003-04), period III (TE 2004-05-2018-19) and overall period ( TE1974-75 to 2018-19).
Primary data were collected through survey method from 180 farmers selected using proportional allocation
technique. The findings of the study showed that the proportion of area under forest has increased from 21.75 per
cent in 1974-75 to 28.75 per cent in 1990-91, after that it declined to 24.56 per cent in 2018-19. The proportion of
net sown area to the total area has declined from 18.85 per cent in 1974-75 to 11.94 per cent in 2004-05, after that it
has risen marginally to 11.88 per cent in 2018-19. It was observed that the CAGR in area under culturable waste
declined by 0.49 per cent per annum and barren land increased by 5.50 per cent whereas, land put to nonagricultural uses increased by 2.27 per cent and net sown area has significantly decreased at the rate of 0.13 per cent
per annum during the overall period. It was noticed that period III has lowest level of instability in all categories of
land compared to periods I and period II. Inter-sectoral land budgeting revealed that area shift were occurring from
both desirable and undesirable ecology sectors towards agricultural as well as non-agricultural sectors. The results
of multinomial logistic regression revealed that factors like total owned land, number of fragments, investment in
agriculture sector and farm income significantly affected the agricultural land use for being in the medium category
of land use change. The factors like age of head of household, education level of head, per cent irrigated area,
number of fragments and farm income significantly affected the agricultural land use change for being in the high
category of land use change. Simultaneous equation model was used to study the impact of agricultural land use
change on agricultural production and results indicated that family size, cultivated land and agricultural productivity
had positive impact on gross household income. But the impact of agricultural productivity was non-significant
which indicated the fact that farmers’ income also depended on the non-agricultural earning. The other results
showed that the gross household income, agricultural land use change and investment in agriculture had positive
effects on agricultural productivity. The high significance of the agricultural land use change suggests that the
change in agricultural productivity largely depended on the changing socio-economic conditions in agriculture. All
the farmers who were engaged in natural farming experienced decrease in yield, farming expenses, net income and
increase in manual labour and no change in price received for produce under natural farming. Therefore, proper
planning and management of land resources and appropriate policy framework are required to check the conversion
of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes and proper implementation of land use policies are needed