CONVERGENCE OF FOODGRAINS PRODUCTIVITY IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

Debabrata Mukhopadhyay and Nityananda Sarkar

International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), 2019, vol. 07, issue 3

Abstract: This study investigates the convergence hypothesis in productivity of foodgrains in terms of output per unit of cropped area during the period 2000-01 to 2012-13 across the major 18 foodgrains producing states of India using the two standard measures of convergence viz., sigma convergence and beta convergence. This has been done by applying the advanced panel data methodology, namely, panel unit root tests on demeaned series, static panel regression and dynamic panel regression apart from conventional measures based on standard deviation and coefficient of variation. A cross section regression shows irrigated cropped area to be the only significant explanatory variable for explaining productivity variation across the states. All the tests show evidence in favour of sigma and both conditional and unconditional beta convergences. This study with foodgrains productivity shows convergence or divergence in outcome(s) only. But convergence in means ( i.e., sources) is also an important issue in this context. In this paper, we have also examined this in terms of input cost for two principal crops viz., paddy and wheat in the major foodgrains producing states. This has been studied by sigma convergence technique only. Results show convergence in average cost of production of wheat only, and not of paddy. This finding is important in explaining the role of technological spillover on input cost reduction across the states, and its effect in achieving convergence in foodgrains productivity

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Crop Production/Industries; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Political Economy; Production Economics; Productivity Analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/292487/files/vol7.no3.pp229.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ijfaec:292487

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.292487

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC) from Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().