Kaveri G Sonawane, Sachin S More, Digambar S Perke and Ranjit V Chavan

In order to face the increasing population pressure and changing consumption pattern, to enhance the income of rural people and to boost the employment opportunities, diversification of rural economy is necessary to lessen the burden on agriculture. Diversification in crop sector results in overall development of any region. So, there is great need to diversify the agriculture from traditional low-valued crops to high valued horticulture and livestock commodities. The policy makers are also emphasizing on changing the way the agriculture sector works in order to tackle the inconsistencies in the farm sector and achieve food security. On this backdrop, the diversification of agriculture towards high-value commodities (HVCs) like fruits, vegetables, diary, poultry, meat and fish products, etc. is suggest as a viable solution to stabilize and raise farm income, enhance agricultural growth, increase employment opportunities and conserve natural resources.

The literature review on the topic offers ample scope for a critical and retrospective examination of the work done on diversification of crops and other related enterprises. Hence, because of conspicuous lack of research studies and inadequate empirical evidences regarding diversification, it is extremely important to examine the techniques and status of diversification at macro level.

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