Crop diversification is a concept which is opposite to crop specialization.

The
farmers all over the world, especially in the developing countries, try to grow several
crops in their holdings in an agricultural year.

The level of crop diversification largely depends on the geo-climatic/socioeconomic

conditions and technological development in a region. In general, higher the level of
agricultural technology, lesser the degree of diversification. Moreover, the rich
farmers prefer to specialize in agricultural enterprise while the poor and subsisted
farmers are generally more interested in the diversification of crops.

The main causes for the crop diversification may be as under:

(1) The uncertain weather, especially the erratic rainfall. In the areas where the
variability of rainfall is high and adequate sources of irrigation are not available,
farmers grow several crops in a season, requiring different quantities of moisture. It
is being done mainly to get something from their fields even in the case of extreme
weather (drought or deluge) conditions.

(2) In the tradition bound subsistent farming systems the farmers grow several crops
to meet the family requirements. In such areas one may find a high degree of crops
diversification.

(3) Diversification has usually been done by the farmers to enhance nitrogen in the
soil and to replenish the soil fertility. It has been established by the agricultural
scientists that crop specialization and monoculture for several years lead to soil
depletion. In other words crop diversification increases the sustainability of arable
land.

(4) The diversification of crops also generates more employment as the farmers and
agricultural workers remain busy in the sowing, weeding, harvesting and marketing
of different crops throughout the year.
(5) Diversification of crops also enables the farmers to provide a reasonable quantity
of the costly inputs to their crops as different crops need different quantities of inputs
(chemical fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and irrigation). In the case of crop
specialization the inputs are required at a specific time and many of the farmers may
not be in a position to provide the required inputs at the appropriate time owing to
their high cost.

Looking at the importance of crop diversification many geographers have developed

techniques for the measurement of crop diversification and crop specialization. In
general, it is assumed that if the lumber of crops grown in a component areal unit is
large (say about 10), each crop occupying about 10 per cent of the cropped area, it
would mean that the crop diversification is of a very high degree. Contrary to this, if
a crop occupies 100 per cent of the gross cropped area, the diversification is least
and it will be a case of high degree of crop specialization.

For the measurement of crop diversification, Bhatia (1965) developed a

formula based on the gross cropped area. The formula has been expressed
as:
Index of Crop Diversification =

Percent of sown area under x crops /Number of x crops