Impact of Urbanisation on Cropping Pattern in Tamil Nadu – An Economic Analysis

Urbanisation per se becomes significant, since it affects land use, cropping pattern, occupational pattern, migration, literacy, access to markets and infrastructure, etc. Dynamics of cropping pattern is usually expressed at macro level and it has a significant bearing on the urbanization, mainly due to the availability and proximity of markets in the urban areas. The specific objectives set forth for the study are, to study the temporal changes and the shift in the cropping pattern and to measure the extent of diversification in the study area. The tools used for the study were descriptive statistics, growth rate analysis, markov chain analysis and diversification indices. The changes in the cropping pattern was estimated for the period from 2000-01 to 2019-2020 and further discussed under two decadal periods. The results revealed that there has been a gradual shift in the cropping pattern in Tamil Nadu state. The shift in cropping pattern, might be due to the awareness of the farmers on the profitability of the crops and developments in the market infrastructure and urbanisation.