Land is perfectly finite and scarce in relation to the ever-increasing human wants and needs. Judicious and rational utilization of land, hence land use management, faces the challenge to adjust its use by increasing the proportion of particular use over other uses or certain area can be put to multiple uses. There is variability in the land use pattern in different areas. Both physical factors such as topography, climate, soil types, as well as human factors such as population, density, technological capability and cultural and traditions play an important role in deciding the land use pattern of the areas. And as humans are evolving, progressing and our needs are increasing, and economic activities change with time, land use changes over time and space. Studying the changing land use pattern also helps to know the social, cultural and economic development of the area as well as the people. We can also know about the past condition of land and what the future condition will be.
Irrigation is an important aspect of agriculture. Water is essential for agriculture, and food is essential for humans. Hence, in this study we also tried to see the association between irrigation and different types of crops and number of crops. It is done to see whether irrigation supports only some specific types of crop or all the crops. Also, the association between number of crops and irrigation tells us whether there is the practice of monocropping (where one or a few crops are grown in greater proportion) or practice of growing different types of crops in the area.
Food is essential for survival; hence we are taking the state of Haryana for the trend analysis as it is one of the important states in terms of producing food. Haryana State came into existence simultaneously with green revolution i.e. 1966-67. After the formation Haryana emerge as leading State in field of agriculture production. The agricultural economy of Haryana is dominated by food grains. Haryana has emerged as one of the major food grains producing States in the country. Consisting only 2.3 per cent of country’s total area, Haryana has been contributing significantly to the food basket of the country. In 2012-13 country’s 120.78 million hectares area was under food grains production from it, 4.40 million hectares area under food grain production in Haryana; it is 3.64 percent of total country area under production of food grains. Haryana which covers only three percent of food grain area produced 16.23 million tons of food grain in 2012-13and this constitutes 6.31 percent of total food grain production; almost double share compares to area and greater than many large states. It is a matter of interest to know at what extent the land use pattern has been changing, what kind of changes in pattern the land has undergone over a span of 15 years.
