Livelihood Diversification Pattern among the Farmers of West Bengal Saha Biswarup1,*, Bahal Ram2 1Department of Fisheries Extension, College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University, Lembucherra, West Tripura, Tripura-799 210, India 2Division of Agricultural Extension, IARI, New Delhi, India *Corresponding author: biswarup.ext@gmail.com
Online published on 11 November, 2014. Abstract Based on research from Darjeeling and Uttar Dinajpur districts of West Bengal this paper presents evidence that non-farm and off-farm activities are carried out by a significant proportion of farmers and make an important contribution to livelihoods. The average diversification index in the study area was 0.46. Majority of the diversifiers had medium extent of diversification. It shows that there is a high involvement of farm women (24%) in diversification activities. Diversification activities make a greater contribution to cash incomes for poorer households. The study found that farmers from Darjeeling district are more diversified (52%) compared to Uttar Dinajpur district (39%). The reason might be that the scope and marketing in non-farm sector are higher in Darjeeling as compared to Uttar Dinajpur district. In Darjeeling district unavailability of land as well as unproductive land particularly in the hill and comparatively high cost of living also forced farmers to diversify into other sectors for their livelihood. Despite the vast potentiality to diversify the livelihood towards farm and non-farm activities in the study area, there were problems such as negative perception of the community, outdated method of production, lack of improved technology and skills, lack of business start- up budget and absence of market for the non-farm output. There are also lacks of potential researches to study the effect of non-farm activities on farm production and to identify the major problems that hamper the non-farm sector. State machinery should play a facilitator's role in terms of promoting investment in infrastructure such as road, electricity, irrigation facility etc. more of a decentralized operations for government programmes, especially using the local institution for greater efficiency and better outreach. Top Keywords Livelihood diversification, diversification index, diversification pattern, farmers, off farm income, non farm income. Top |