Published Paper Details:

India is a rural-based economy where approximately seventy per cent population of the country lives in rural areas. In the state of Assam, it has been found that around 86 percent of people live in rural areas. The livelihood of these people fundamentally depends on the agriculture sector. Therefore, this sector has to acknowledge the huge burdens of the rural population. To mitigate the risk and uncertainty associated with traditional farming, the rural people either shifting their occupation from farm to non-farm or agricultural allied activities. This paper seeks to calculate the cost, benefit, and profitability of traditional and horticultural activities. For determining the cost of production of crops properly, the cost concepts of the CACP has been used. Various financial ratios have been used to show the relative return of the traditional and horticultural activities. It has been found that the allied activities are being given more importance by the farmers in rural Assam. The farmers are giving more importance to allied activities like horticulture, fish, and dairy farming whereas the farmers are avoiding traditional farming activities. The rate of return from the practicing of horticultural activities is relatively more than the traditional crop farming. In the allied activities, the required amount of capital or cost of production is comparatively more than the other farming activities. It has been found from the primary investigation that most educated young farmers practice high returnable crops avoiding traditional ones. This is established by the fact that the horticultural activities are relatively more profitable which makes the farm household more strong to deal with the agrarian crises. The success stories of the three sample districts which have exhibited significant diversification in the sphere of horticulture offer sound evidence that a strategy of rural diversification can be a targeted strategy for averting and managing the agrarian crisis that recurrently plagues the rural sector.