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Abstract:
Agrobiodiversity a key principle of agroecology – integrates crop diversification as a key component for building resilient agricultural systems. Crop diversification focuses
on transitioning from monoculture practices to multiple crop systems, thereby enhancing soil health, biodiversity, promoting dietary and nutritional diversity, and
providing economic benefits to farmers. The study aims to quantify and evaluate changes in crop species diversity for India at the subnational scale (district level) and
regional scale (Agro-Ecological Zones, AEZs) using the Shannon Index for Crop Species Diversity (CSD), Pielou’s Index for Crop Species Evenness (CSE), and
Margalef Index for Crop Species Richness (CSR) using crop harvested area for 56 crops in 711 districts from 1997 to 2019. The results report that regions with high
diversity are located in the Southern Peninsular region. In contrast, the northwestern and southeastern region shows lower CSD values, as 86% of the crop composition is
dominated by rice, indicating towards predominance of monocultural practices. The trend analysis reveals that 18% of the total districts show a significantly increasing
trend in CSD and are classified as diversity hotspots, whereas 15% of the total districts fall in the low diversity region as they show a significant decreasing trend. Based on
these results, we argue that there is a need to address the declining crop species diversity, as the homogenization of crop species will have ecological, economic, and
nutritional implications. The outcome of the study can help to identify target locations (with low and declining diversity) for designing climate-resilient agricultural practices.88-2637
