Study on the cropping pattern followed by summer cabbage growers in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat state

Abstract

About 60.00 Per cent of population in the country depends on agriculture for their primary livelihood. A farmer who is a good manager should be able to make as much profit, the aim of the most of the farmer should be to earn profits. Crop should be grown only to earn profit. Thus, market oriented agriculture in the mixed economy of the India need to promote farmers that produce products that local people need. It is managed by the farmers through following various cropping pattern. Among the cole crops only cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. var capitata) and cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var botrytis) are grown in winter within India and produce good yield between 5°C to 30° C day temperature. The highest price during the summer season is the driving force within the farmers of the Sabarkantha district and they are motivated to cultivate the cabbage as a summer crop. This is the transformation of farmer from the traditional to the modern farming method. Considering the highest area & production of cabbage crop Sabarkantha district, was purposively selected for the study. Prantij taluka was also purposively selected, because this taluka have highest cabbage growing area as compared to other talukas. Twelve villages form taluka were selected purposively. Using random sampling techniques, equal number of respondents i.e., Ten from each village were selected. Thus, total 120 respondents were selected. Cropping pattern in this study was defined as a sequence of crops sown by the respondents on a given area. The information about cropping pattern followed by the cabbage growers was collected. Based on the frequency and percentage of the farmers adopting different cropping pattern, each cropping pattern has been assigned rank. Major cropping pattern of Chilli- Chilli-Cabbage (49.17 per cent), Okra - Okra - Cabbage (33.34 per cent), Cauliflower - Cabbage (29.16 per cent), Cotton - Wheat - Pearl millet (27.5 per cent), Bottle guard - Bottle guard - Cabbage (25.00 per cent), Brinjal -Brinjal -Brinjal (24.16 per cent), Cabbage - Cabbage (22.50 per cent) and Tomato-Tomato-Tomato {22.50 per cent) were adopted by the respondents with the first to seventh rank, respectively.