2. Land Use and Cropping Pattern Dynamic

This chapter focuses on land use and cropping pattern dynamic. In agriculture geography, land use explains about changing pattern, cropping linkages, and nature of agricultural innovation happening over any region. And further to this, to understand the title of the book, this chapter is a way forward. The present chapter aims to examine the changing land use and cropping pattern under different land size classes from 1995–1996 to 2015–2016. One hypothesis is tested: “an amount of change in cropping pattern across land size classes is equal.” Except the last section of this chapter, the secondary data has been used to show the change in agricultural land use and gross cropped area in two decades. The simple percentage technique, absolute modulus function, and ANOVA technique are used for meaningful conclusion of data. For maps and diagrams, QGIS and Excel spreadsheets are used to reach to the findings of analyses. This chapter found that the net sown area of the district has decreased but overall gross cropped area has increased in which area under fibers, oilseeds, and fruits expands while area under cereals, pulses, and vegetation area decreases. Overall area under non-food crops has increased, but amount of that is higher under marginal land size group than the rest. The last section on the reason for changing the cropping pattern explains that profit opportunity is the main driving force followed by consumption, crop productivity, and others in the district.