Change in Land use and Growth in the Area of Selected Crops in Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD)

To examine the change in land use pattern, growth trends of area of selected crops and crop diversification of BTAD from 2014–15 to 2022–23.

Data were collected from the Joint Directorate of Economics and Statistics of BTC and Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Assam. The study used percentage, Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), Simpson Diversity Index and tabular.

Non-agricultural land raised by 6.88 per cent, while barren land increased by 1.92 per cent. Permanent pasture declined by 13.23 per cent, but tree crop area grew by 5.96 per cent. Fallow land expanded sharply general fallow by 35.19 per cent and current fallow by 21.25 per cent. The net sown area fell by 4.78 per cent and land sown more than once dropped by 27.01 per cent, leading to an overall 11.97 per cent decline in cropped area. This shows reduced crop intensity and negative growth in multiple cropping. There has been a sharp decline in food crops, with autumn rice (-2.32) and summer rice (-2.32) falling, while winter rice (1.08) grew steadily. Plantation crops such as tea, areca nut and banana raised by 8.2 per cent, 5.66 per cent and 1.85 per cent respectively. Horticulture crops also expanded kharif vegetables by 3.7 per cent, rabi vegetables by 7.6 per cent, onion by 4.1 per cent, garlic by 2.5 per cent and chilli by 2.43 per cent. The Simpson Diversity Index fell from 0.57 in 2014–15 to 0.32 in 2022–23, showing a sharp decline in diversity. Thus, there has been growth in all the selected crops except summer rice and autumn rice. But the growth in all the selected crops was not support the result of crop diversification.