Cropping intensity is widely used in agricultural geography as an indicator of how intensively cultivated land is used across seasons, but it does not automatically explain spatial differences in agricultural productivity. In districts where irrigation access, soil quality, crop structure, and infrastructure vary across space, high aggregate cropping intensity may coexist with uneven output and uneven agrarian opportunity. South Dinajpur district in West Bengal is a useful case for examining this problem. Official district records indicate a net sown area of 188.6 thousand hectares, a gross cropped area of 331.9 thousand hectares, and a cropping intensity of 176 percent. Yet the same profile shows only partial irrigation coverage, strong dependence on shallow tube wells and lift irrigation, and continued rainfed exposure across a substantial share of cultivated land. This paper develops a district-focused geographical analysis of the relationship between cropping intensity and agricultural productivity in South Dinajpur. It uses a review-based approach, combining official district statistics with recent peer-reviewed literature on agrarian transition, irrigation, crop diversification, agricultural sustainability, remote sensing of cropping intensity, and soil fertility in the Barind tract of Dakshin Dinajpur. The paper argues that South Dinajpur should not be treated simply as a high-intensity agricultural district. Rather, it should be understood as an internally differentiated agrarian space in which productivity is mediated by the uneven geography of irrigation, soil fertility, crop structure, and infrastructural support. The paper contributes a spatial analytical framework for future block-level and GIS-based research and shows why district averages are insufficient for understanding agricultural performance in this part of West Bengal. (Department of Agriculture Government of India, 2011; Malo Nandi et al., 2025; Paria et al., 2022).
Roy et al. (Wed,) studied this question.