Year: 2015 | Month: February | Volume 60 | Issue 1
Study on growth of major cereals in West Bengal
Debashis Sarkar
DOI:10.5958/0976-4666.2015.00022.4
Abstract:
An effort has been made in this study to measure the sub-period growth rates of area, production and yield of two major crops i.e. rice and wheat in West Bengal. The study also tries to examine the changes in costs and profitability of these two crops during this period. It has been observed that the agriculture of the state had been able to boost its performance during the decade of eighties, at least in terms of growth rates production of rice and wheat, mainly for tremendous increment in the yield growth rates of the crops along with expansion of area under cultivation. The effective introduction of HYV technology coupled with successful implementation of land reforms programme at the very grass root level set the path of agricultural development in West Bengal. However, this scenario of impressive growth performance did not sustain for a very long period of time. The fall in the yield growth rates of crops reduces the production growth rates during the era of globalisation which have been started in the early nineties. During this period, crops such as boro rice, and total food grain experienced fall in their growth rates to a significant extent with marked deceleration in growth trend. The trend of declining cost of production with higher growth in yields got reversed in the nineties and beyond and they went up at nearly 1.5% per annum for rice and wheat. The returns over paid-out costs also for rice farmers declined at 1.15% per annum in real terms leading to distress for them. This declining profitability seems to have discouraged them in increasing spending on yield augmenting technology as shown by the relatively declining growth rate of cost of cultivation.
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