A Study on the performance of Agricultural Sector in India

The time series data at all India level on area, production and productivity of foodgrains, production and per capita availability of milk and eggs and production of meat were compiled and a decade wise analysis of growth rate, instability index and decomposition analysis was done to study the performance of agriculture sector. During the overall period, the area under food grains showed negative growth whereas production and productivity growth was positive. For milk and egg, both production and per capita availability showed positive growth. Meat production showed a positively significant growth rate. Growth rate in area, production and productivity of both vegetables and fruits was positive. In general, for foodgrains, the yield effect was higher than the area effect which could be attributed to increased use of high yielding varieties. For vegetables and fruits, the contribution of area effect was more than that of yield and the interaction effect suggesting that measures should be taken to improve their productivity.