An Exploratory Study on Farm Diversification in Himachal Pradesh

The study was conducted in five districts viz. Una and Bilaspur representing zone I, Kangra and Mandi representing zone II and Kullu representing the Zones III and IV of Himachal Pradesh. There was a total sample of 360 respondents (72 in each district). Enterprise-wise gross income as realized by the farmers during 2012-13 formed the basis of present investigation. In all 103 sub-farming systems were identified. The maximum number of sub-farming systems was under Livestock based system (46) followed by cereals based (28), fruit based (15), vegetable based (10), other enterprises based (2) and oilseed based (1). Based on the adoption of sub-farming systems by larger number of households, the most preferred farming systems were (first two from the first four categories): Livestock+cereals (26 households), Livestock+cereals+fodder+vegetables (22 households), Cereals+livestock (28 households), Cereals+livestock+fodder+vegetables (14 households), Fruits (15 households), Fruits+livestock (14 households), Vegetables+livestock (6 households), and Vegetables+livestock+cereals (2 households). Livestock based farming systems followed by cereals based farming systems were the dominating farming systems in Zone I and II of Himachal Pradesh. In these zones 63.9 and 59.7% of the farmers were dependent on Livestock based farming systems and 33.3 and 36.8% farmers, respectively, were dependent on cereals based farming systems. In Zone III fruit growing was main activity and 72.2% of the households were dependent on fruit based farming systems. This was followed by vegetable based farming systems from which 23.6% of the households earn their livelihood. Overall fruits (36.4%) had highest share in the gross income which was followed by livestock production (28.77%), cereals (23.28%) and vegetables (8.11%).