Published Paper Details:

Agriculture is the predominant occupation of the over whelming number of households in the study area. The traditional crops on the uneconomic holdings used to be barley, buckwheat, pulses, local peas (black pea) mustard etc. Out of total owned land 435.11 hectares, net area sown has been worked out 281.69 hectares constituting 64.74 per cent area under crops to land utilization, the cropping pattern in the study area is one of the important indicators to determine the extent to which an efficient use of land is being made. Since the holdings are very small, the intensity of cropping is low and subsistence living was the core of the agricultural economy of the sample households in seventies. The tribal district Lahaul-Spiti of Himachal Pradesh has been endowed with varied climatic and topographical conditions which have provided the area with varied agro-potential. Although the agro-climatic conditions prevailing the study area are quite conducive to the production of cash crops like potato, green peas, vegetables, apple, non-food grain crops like manu and kuth yet the varied climatic and topographic conditions restrict the areas for crop specific in its cultivation. Marginal and small farmers are still reluctant to convert their land to cash crops due to insecurity about having food for surviual, food habit also discourage to shift in area for commercial crops in a short growing period.