Causes of Land Degradation in Uttar Pradesh, India: An Econometric Analysis

Abstract

Soil degradation is largely caused by improper maintenance and use of canal irrigation. Land degradation also includes loss in productivity over time due to various natural and artificial causes. The study was based on primary data to identify the causes of land degradation in Uttar Pradesh. The multi-stage stratified random sampling technique was used to select the samples at the zone, district, block, village, and farmer levels. Separately, respondents of different farm categories were found to be very few. That is why the overall number of respondents was used to analyze the study results. The period of the study was 2018-19. Logit analysis was used to analyze the causes of land degradation in the study area. The results indicated that variables such as education, migration, high fertilizer use, mono-cropping, non-farm income, and family labour were responsible for the causes of land degradation. With the increase in population, people's requirements have become complex, resulting in changes in land use, cropping patterns, and irrigation patterns. Industrialization attracted people to urban areas, which provided them with better job opportunities. Rapid population growth followed by industrialization and urbanization has depleted resources and changed the land use patterns. The study suggested that it is urgent to capture the degradation of land and restore the productivity of degraded soils so that a sufficient amount of food can be produced to fulfill the increasing population's requirements without compromising the future generation's requirements.