Economic Performance and Optimum Cropping Patternbased on Alternative Price Scenarios in Arid-Western Plain Zone of Rajasthan State

The present investigation was undertaken to work out the economic performance and optimum cropping pattern based on alternative price scenarios in Arid-Western Plain Zone of Rajasthan state. In the present study, the unit-level cost of cultivation data of various crops for the triennium ending year 2013-14 which were collected from “Comprehensive Scheme to Study the Cost of Cultivation of Principal Crops in Rajasthan state. The performance of different crops was assessed by calculating net returns under three alternative price scenarios i.e. (i) Market prices (MP) (ii) Economic prices (EP) and (iii) Net income based on natural resource valuation technique (NRV). This study has considered subsidy as a cost to society. Similarly green house gas emissions from the crops have been taken as cost to the society and nitrogen fixation by leguminous crops have been taken as gain to the society. Results from the study shows that groundnut-barley combination of crop sequence was found the most remunerative in economic return generated over the year of `59418 per hectare followed by groundnut-vegetables (`53930/ha) and groundnut-gram (`52879/ha) combinations. Net gain to the farmers based on the alternative price scenarios viz. market, economic and natural resource valuation prices were estimated as `114.38 lakh, `114.45 lakh and `138.82 lakh, respectively. The overall gain to society has increased at economic prices by `49.39 lakh whereas it was decreased by `93.24 lakh at natural resource valuation due to the lack of cultivation of legume crops. The optimal plan is suggested that more area under cultivation of legume crops like groundnut, clusterbean and gram because of they are less water intensive and more environment friendly and thus have a positive impact on natural resource valuation with the existing water availability.