SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN GUJARAT

Gujarat has less fertile and mostly arid and semi-arid land. Instead of experiencing erratic behavior of monsoon, it has enjoyed a higher growth rate in agriculture for many decades. But inequality in resource distribution and disparity in agricultural development is still a greater challenge for the state in foreseeable future. Analysis presented in this paper shows a rosy picture of agricultural status of the state of Gujarat, India by constructing a composite agricultural status index at region as well as district level. The findings revealed the declined agricultural performance of Gujarat state over a decade. Eight districts namely Amreli, Surendranagar, Dahod, Bharuch, Dang, Valsad, Patan and Kutchh were found low developed in agriculture which account for about 29 per cent of the total gross cropped area of the state. The study further shows that the regions of Kutchh need greater attention for its agricultural development. For bringing about uniform regional development, model districts have also been identified to improve the agricultural status of low developed districts. Besides, the study also explores different poor performed indicators in each low developed district that require improvement in their performance for enhancing the level of development of respective districts.