Cropping Intensity and Agricultural Productivity in South Dinajpur District: A Geographical Analysis

Abstract

Cropping intensity has become a central indicator in agricultural geography because it captures the degree to which cultivated land is used across multiple seasons within a limited land base. Yet high cropping intensity does not necessarily produce uniformly high agricultural productivity. In districts marked by uneven irrigation, variable soil fertility, selective crop concentration, and unequal market access, intensification often generates differentiated rather than evenly distributed agrarian outcomes. South Dinajpur district in West Bengal offers a particularly important case for examining this contradiction. Official district records identify a net sown area of 188.6 thousand hectares, a gross cropped area of 331.9 thousand hectares, and a cropping intensity of 176 percent, which together indicate strong land-use intensification. At the same time, the district remains only partially irrigated, with a net irrigated area of 82.54 thousand hectares and a rainfed area of 93.08 thousand hectares, suggesting that repeated cultivation is not equally secured across space. Recent literature from West Bengal and the wider Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain shows that irrigation, crop diversification, infrastructure, climate variability, and soil quality strongly shape agricultural performance, while aggregated district statistics may obscure finer spatial inequalities. This article addresses the gap by developing a district-focused review of cropping intensity and agricultural productivity in South Dinajpur. It synthesizes official district statistics, recent peer-reviewed work on agrarian transition, agricultural sustainability, irrigation, remote sensing of cropping intensity, and emerging soil-fertility evidence from the Barind tract of Dakshin Dinajpur. The article argues that South Dinajpur should not be read simply as a high-intensity agricultural district. Rather, it should be understood as an internally differentiated agrarian space in which productivity is mediated by the uneven geography of irrigation access, soil fertility, cropping structure, and infrastructural support. The article contributes a spatial analytical framework for future empirical and GIS-based research on the district and clarifies why cropping intensity and productivity should be treated as related but analytically distinct geographical processes. (Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, 2025; Government of India, 2011; Malo & Saha, 2025; Nandi et al., 2025; Paria et al., 2022)