Comparing Performance of Various Crops in Rajasthan state based on Market Price, Economic Prices and Natural Resource Valuation

The study has assessed the performance of different crops and cropping pattern in the state of Rajasthan using alternative price scenarios like market prices; economic prices (net out effect of subsidy) and natural resource valuation (NRV) considering environmental benefits like biological nitrogen fixation and greenhouse gas costs. The study has used unit-level cost of cultivation data for the triennium ending 2013–14 which were collected from Cost of Cultivation Scheme, MPUAT, Udaipur (Raj.) for the present study. It has analyzed crop-wise use of fertilizers, groundwater, surface water and subsidies. The secondary data of cropping pattern was also used from 1991–95 to 2011–14 from various published sources of Government of Rajasthan. The study that even after netting out the input subsidies and effect on environment and natural resources, the cotton-vegetables cropping pattern was found more stable and efficient because of the higher net return of 102463 per hectare with the next best alternate cropping patterns like clusterbean-chillies ( 86934/ha), cotton-wheat ( 69712/ha), clusterbean-wheat ( 64987/ha) etc. under the set of marketing infrastructure, minimum support prices, agricultural technological know-how, climatic conditions in the various zones, available irrigation facilities. The study has pointed out that the grower farmers may not move towards the diversification until incentivized by economically attractive alternate cropping patterns.