**11. Review of literature**

Kasem and Thapa during 2011 conducted a study in Thailand, collecting primary data from 245 farm households using a structured questionnaire to examine the impact of crop diversification on income and input consumption. They discovered that the vast majority of farmers stated that crop diversification contributed to a significant rise in their revenue [29]. The results of their research findings are depicted in **Table 4.**

Birthal et al. studied into the impact of crop diversification on India's farm poverty. Data from a nationally representative survey was used. The dataset, according to them, contains information on the crops grown, as well as the costs and returns

*Crop Diversification an Effective Strategy for Sustainable Agriculture Development DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102635*


#### **Table 4.**

*Diversified farmers viewpoint about benefits of crop diversification.*


*Figures in parentheses are standard errors. Total cereals include rice, wheat, maize, and coarse cereals like pearl millet, sorghum, and barley. High-value crops include vegetables, fruits, condiments and spices, flowers, aromatic and medicinal plants, and plantation crops like tea and coffee.\* One US\$ = 47.62 in the survey year i.e., 2002–2003 [30].*

#### **Table 5.**

*Comparison of net returns (Rs ha−1) from higher value crops with other crops by crop diversification.*

associated with each crop. This allows us to investigate the pattern and breadth of high value crop diversification across land sizes, as well as their profitability in comparison to other crops. In comparison to other crops, **Table 5** shows the estimated net returns per hectare from high value crop cultivation. When compared to cereals, high value crop (HCVs) provided much higher returns to all types of farmers, including marginal farmers [30].

Despite differences between countries, rural households in the majority of countries tend to rotate a small number of crops. Two, three, or a maximum of four agricultural products are the most common combinations used by households. Few households grow more than six distinct crops, most likely due to the small size of their allotment and the inherent challenge of producing many goods viz. water requirements, necessity of sun exposition and type of soil, among others. An empirical evidenced from eight different countries were analyzed and presented in **Table 6** [31].

Diversification of crop through intercropping system has significant advantage in land use efficiency, monetary returns and crop productivity as compared to monocropping. Intercropping results in more efficient use of solar energy and harnessing benefits of positive interactions of crop association. Benefits of some potential intercropping system are discussed in below **Table 7** with regards to system productivity, net returns and B:C ratio.


*Share of household practicing different numbers of crops (an empirical evidence from eight developing countries) [31].*

**Table 6.**

*Crop Diversification an Effective Strategy for Sustainable Agriculture Development DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102635*


#### **Table 7.**

*Economics of intercropping system for crop diversification.*
