The study of cropping pattern assumes a great significance as it is one of the important path for balanced development of agriculture to meet the human requirements. The present study is based on secondary data collected from different Government publication. The data covered a period of 32 years i.e. 1970-71 to 2001-02. Simple tabular analysis was used to examined the changes in cropping pattern in Yavatmal district and to quantify the extent of diversification Herfindahl and Entropy indices have been used. The compound growth rates of area, production and yield of major crops were estimated for two sub-periods. The first period was 1970-71 to 1985-86 (period I) and second period was 1986-87 to 2001-02 (period II). The results showed that in Yavatmal district the significant positive growth rates of area was observed in Cotton 1.38 per cent in period I. Whereas area growth rates of all the pulse crop increased significantly during period II. Among all the crops highest area growth rate 43.35 per cent was observed in Soybean during period II. On the other hand production growth rates of Kh. Groundnut declined significantly during both the periods. During the study period, it is observed that cropping pattern has changed substantially in Yavatmal district During the study period, crop diversification and cropping intensity increased significantly.
