Whether area and enterprise shifts in Karnataka agriculture reveal a growth or coping strategy?

In Karnataka, two-thirds of the cultivated area is drought-prone and dependent on the vagaries of the southwest monsoon. Tardy coverage of irrigation and frequent droughts have brought about several shifts in the state's cropping pattern and affected income and employment in the agricultural and rural sector. Karnataka has topped the crop diversification index across the country, as revealed by the Economic Survey. In this paper, the shifts occurred in area and enterprise mix in Karnataka agriculture are examined, based on secondary data from the central and state government publications. The analysis indicates a marginal shift in agricultural land resources like increase in land put to non-agricultural use and decline in categories of non-agricultural land. The results indicate a moderate shift in the area, and the enterprises seen in Karnataka agriculture was necessarily a coping strategy of agricultural households rather than a high income growth strategy.