Chapter I Introduction (J Z
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Relevance of Topic Agriculture in developing countries will be confronted with three major challenges in the decades to come (i) increasing food demand from rapidly growing population as well as due to economic growth, (ii) stagnating or declining productivity in high productivity regions, often described as "green revolution fatigue" and (iii) increasing vulnerability of agriculture to potential climate change. It is not conceivable that agriculture can deliver the expected output without modern technologies such as genetic engineering, biotechnology and geo-environment technology. Estimating crop production in advance of the harvest is of great utility in farming for implementing appropriate agricultural management and pricing of export / import of agriculture commodities. Crop production estimation involves determination of total area under crop and prediction of the yield per unit area. Agriculture has been a major economic activity in India for many centuries. At present, about 59% (2001) of India's population is engaged in agriculture and related activities (J (Datt and Sundha ram, 2001). After Independence (1947), India badly suffered from food shortage due to numerous droughts and famines and had to import food grains. The severity reached its highest peak in 1965-66, which were severe drought years and there was extreme shortage of food supplies. Therefore a team of scientists put forth the idea of 'Green Revolution' i.e. increasing agricultural productivity by using emerging technology. Green Revolution strategy revolved around components like . Irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides and seed technology. Dr. M.S. Swaminathan led the **' Z r 0 agricultural scientists in implementing the concept with surprisingly great success. The adoption of Green Revolution changed the agricultural scenario of India and it not only became self-sufficient in food but also became the exporter of food grains. ^ The intense use of irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides for last 40 years brought out its adverse effects on environment. It has been realized that good agricultural lands in I Godavari and Bhima drain this region, having fertile soils (black cotton soils). Average annual rainfall of the study area is 500 - 700 mm. Rainfall is reliable though moderate (Deshpande, 1971). The temperatures vary between 22°C and 30°C during kharif and between 14°C and 28°C in the rabi season. There are only agro-based industries like sugar factories and power loom mills. Therefore, agriculture plays major role in the region's economy. Large agricultural areas are rainfed (dryland) and very few parts have irrigation facilities. Therefore, a spatio-temporal study of crop regions is needed for the sustainability of the economy of the region. 1.2 Study Area Maharashtra state is the third largest state of India covering 11% area of the country. It is having Konkan coastline followed by Western Ghats in the west, plateaus in central parts and hilly zones in north and eastern parts of the state. Administratively, there are 35 districts (Figure 1.1) comprising of 356 talukas in the state. The State is divided in six revenue divisions; Nashik (5 districts), Konkan (4), Mumbai (2), Pune (5), Aurangabad (8), Amravati (5) and Nagpur (6). Figure 1.1 Administrative map of Maharashtra State; Source: Maharashtra Government Press, Pune (2001) 3 river basins are becoming wastelands due to salinisation resulting from indiscriminate application of irrigation. The soils are degraded due to excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This has led to reduction in productive area for agriculture and finally less production of food grains. In the mean time, population of India has increased to 100 crores and above. This indicates that another Green Revolution which is now termed by Dr. M. S. Swaminathan as Evergreen Revolution has to be extended to enhance productivity of crops. Remote sensing (RS) is defined as the measurement or acquisition of information of some property of an object or phenomenon by a recording device that is not in physical or intimate contact with the object or phenomenon under study. These systems, particularly deployed on satellites, provide a repetitive and consistent view of the earth that is valuable to monitoring the earth systems and the effect of human activities on them. One of the important applications of RS technology is agriculture; it includes studies like crop inventory, monitoring crop condition, yield prediction and soil erosion (Schowengerdt, 2006). Geographical Information System (GIS) is a computer-aided system used for handling spatial and non-spatial data for solving environmental problems. It is the recent development and useful to handle huge geographical data. The advanced tools like RS, GIS and GPS (Global Positioning System) help the analysis as they are capable of bringing out the present conditions of different natural parameters and their trends in the cropping enterprises efficiently. Maharashtra state has fifteen major crops which include cash crops like sugarcane and cotton; cereals like rice, wheat, sorghum, bajra; pulses like pigeon pea, bengal gram, and oilseeds like groundnut, safflower. The State is having wide variation in physiographic, climatic, soil as well as socio-economic conditions. As a result, the cropping pattern is different across the State. The hot, dry semi arid agro-ecological sub-region is located in the central part of Maharashtra (Velayutham et. al.1999). It includes entire Beed, Osmanabad and Solapur districts and partially Pune, Ahmednagar and Satara districts together consisting of 44 talukas (figure 1.3 and table 1.1). The geographical extent of the study area is 17°7'55" N to 19° 39'10" N of latitudes and 74°10'0"E to 76°47'35"E of longitudes. Rivers 2 The state's agro-ecology is fully dominated by its physiography and climate. The agro- ecological classification shows that Central Maharashtra which is to the east of the Western Ghats is characterised by aridity. Therefore, the climate changes from per humid to humid followed by sub humid and semi-arid from west to east in the Western Maharashtra (Figure 1.2). Figure 1.2 Agro-ecological regions of Maharashtra State Source: NBSS and LUP, Nagpur The central Maharashtra is covered by three subregions, hot moist sub-humid region in the north, hot dry sub-humid to the west of the southern part of Central Maharashtra and the remaining is covered by hot dry semi arid agro-ecological subregion. The study area is the hot dry semi arid agro-ecological subregion of Maharashtra state. Though it receives less rainfall, it is the major cropping zone as most of the state's sorghum is grown in this region. 1.2.1 Climate Forming a part of tropical monsoonal lands, the study area experiences annual variations not only in the thermal conditions but also in the amount and intensity of rainfall and the duration of the rainy season. Temperatures are usually the lowest in December and January. 4 LOCATION TSTOTf rm ::= M-oot 7F03t wwc JB-JC^ I J 1 1 1 i_ INDIA MAHARASHTRA STATE strtrtrw- rcroo-s- urou*- •'• 1 X ' \ yS 1 aro n >fc, i TOO* Figure 1.3 Study area - Hot dry semi arid agro-ecological subregion (Source: compiled by author) Table 1.1: Talukas in the study area (ref to figure 1.3) (Source: compiled by author) ID Taluka ID Taluka ID Taluka ID Taluka Ahmadnagar district 12 Patoda 24 Kalamb 36 Mangalvedhe 1 Rahuri 13 Georai 25 Osmanabad 37 Pandharpur 2 Nevasa 14 Beed 26 Tuljapur 38 Sangole 3 Shevgaon 15 Manjlegaon 27 Lohara 39 Malshiras 4 Parner 16 Wadwani 28 Umarga Pune district 5 Nagar 17 Kaij Solapur district 40 Indapur 6 Pathardi 18 Dharur 29 Akkalkot 41 Daund 7 Shrigonda 19 Parli 30 Solapur South 42 Baramati 8 Karjat 20 Ambejogai 31 Solapur North Satara district 9 Jamkhed Osmanabad district 32 Barshi 43 Phaltan 10 Ashti 21 Paranda 33 Mohol 44 Man Beed district 22 Bhum 34 Madha 11 Shirur (Kasar) 23 Washi 35 Karmala 5 Average minimum temperatures are around 12° to 12.5°C. Maximum temperature is in the month of April and May. Average maximum temperatures are around 44° to 46°C. The summer monsoon bursts by 10th June in the region. The Western Ghats cast their shadow to create a rain shadow area. Rainfall at Pune is 665 mm decreases towards east up to 465 mm in Baramati and 480 mm at Phaltan. Then the rainfall gradually increases eastward upto 739 mm at Akkalkot and 770 mm at Manjlegaon. July is the rainiest month with the maximum number of rainy days and followed by September in the study area. Figure 1.4: Isohyet map 1.2.2 Relief The range that separates the Godavari basin and the Bhima basin is called as Harishchandragad - Balaghat range. Taking off from the Western Ghats crest, the range maintains its eastward orientation. The average altitude of the plateau is 600 meters reaches altitude of 800 meters along the margins. The southward slopes of this plateaux and the general altitude of in the eastern direction have given rise to sub- parallel drainage with NW-SE orientation of major rivers like Manjra (figure 1.5). The Balaghat plateau covering Parner taluka in the west and Ambejogai taluka in the east 6 forms the catchment area for a number of plateau rivers. These plateaux are well planated surfaces with deep valleys on either side. Though the catchment areas of these plateau rivers are reasonably large, due their locations away from the area of high rainfall region of the Western Ghats, they do not have sufficient discharge. Therefore these plateau rivers remain dry for most part of the year. Due to meagre discharges passing through rivers, they do not support any major irrigation project and hence the areas remain dry, unproductive and in turns largely neglected so far as the development plans are concerned.