Optimum Crop Planning for Better Resource use Efficiency, Sustainability and Maximizing Farm Net Income in Assam

In Assam, most of the crops are grown with productivity that is lower than the potential yield. Potential utilization of irrigation is not much encouraging in the state. Besides, most of the farmers are marginal and small farmers leading to low mechanization in Assam agriculture. Therefore, a proper crop planning is needed that would help the farmers to select crops for mechanization under assured irrigation that will give them higher profit. The study has been under taken with the objective to develop optimum crop planing for better resource use efficiency, sustainability and maximizing farm net income across production environments by using linear programming (LP) through GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System). The resulted optimum crop model showed that, the areas under almost all the major crops grown in Assam have the scope to be increased under the land constraint of the state both in existing and improved irrigated situation and to contribute more in farm income. From the result of the study, it can be concluded that, besides rice, crops like maize, sugarcane, jute, mustard, pea and vegetables like tomato, brinjal, cauliflower, chilies etc can be seen as potential crops in a profitable crop plan for the state.