Tracing spatiotemporal changes in agricultural and non-agricultural trade networks of India

The evolving international economic instability and international trade relationship demand a nation to move towards a self-reliant integrated system at a sub-national scale to address the growing human needs. Given India’s role in the global trade network, it is critical to explore the underlying extensive complex trade network at the domestic scale. The potential advantages of complex interaction among the different commodities remain unexplored despite the known importance of trade networks in maintaining food security and industrial sustainability. Here we perform a comprehensive analysis of agricultural flows in contrast with non-agricultural commodities across Indian states. The spatio-temporal evolution of the networks from 2010–2018 was studied by evaluating topological network characteristics of consistent spatially disaggregated trade data. Our results show an increase in average annual trade value by 23.3% and 15.4% for agriculture and non-agriculture commodities, respectively, with no significant increase in connectivity observed in both networks. However, they depict contrasting behavior concerning the spatio-temporal changes, with non-agriculture trade becoming more dependent on production hubs and the agriculture trade progressing toward self-reliance, which signifies the evolution of the diversification in the existing agrarian trade network. Our findings could serve as an important element in deepening the knowledge of practical applications like resilience and recovery by devising design appropriate policy interventions for sustainable development.