Srikanth Kondabolu, graduate student, will defend his master's degree thsis, "A Case Study of Changing Cropping Diversity and Agricultural Risk in the Doulthabad Mandal of Telangana State in India" at 10 a.m., July 15 in 202 Hardin Hall.
His adviser is Michael Hayes. His abstract:
The Doulthabad Mandal is a hot semi-arid agro ecological sub-region (Rao et al 2006) located in Mahbubnagar District on the North Telangana Plateau in the state of Telangana. Agriculture is the main occupation in this region, which is populated mostly with small and marginal farmers. This study uses the time period from 1971 to 2004 to study the variation in cropping pattern diversity and distribution of rainfall during the monsoons and understand the implications on production risk in agriculture. Quantitative methods were used in determining the changes in rainfall while qualitative methods were used to study cropping system changes.
The analysis of rainfall data indicates a 5% increase in wet spell duration and a 5% decrease in wet spell intensity in the period from 1971-1990 to 1991-2004. The cropping system diversity in the same time period has decreased from 23 to 10 crops in the Kharif (monsoon) season with access to improved agricultural technology. These changes are also associated with a shift from inter cropping to mono crop based systems. The results indicate that these changes in cropping systems have resulted in a decreased management of production risk with increased investments in agriculture and lesser flexibility in the decision making on crops.