Agricultural Productivity in India – UPSC

In this article, You will read Agricultural Productivity in India – for UPSC IAS.

Agricultural Productivity

• Agricultural Productivity is the quantitative measurement of the capacity of land in relation to crop yield.
• Agricultural Productivity signifies the total output or production from a given piece of land.
• Productivity is not simply the physical quality of land to provide greater yield pa hectare, it is the product of both physical and technological factors. However, the simplest method to measure productivity is per-ha yield.
• Per-ha yield of land depends on:
  • Physical factors
  • Technological Factors.
• Thus, productivity is not only the measurement of the capacity of the soil and the agricultural ecology but also the degree of mechanization and use of modern inputs and technology.

Agricultural Efficiency

• Agricultural Efficiency is a synonymous term to Agricultural Productivity, but it is different from it.
• Agricultural Efficiency is defined as the input-output ratio in an agricultural operation. It reflects the impact of modern inputs and technology in production and is dependent upon the responsiveness of soil and the agricultural ecology. It measures the increase in output with a given increase in inputs, which leads to an increase in profits. This extra profit earned on agriculture is reflected by the Agricultural Efficiency.

Differentiating Agriculture Productivity and Agriculture Efficiency

• Lets differentiate Agriculture Productivity and Agriculture Efficiency with help of an example: Suppose in land A with area of 100 ha we have invested 100 Rs and we have got 150 kg of rice in a given year, now we also have a land B with the same area but the investment of Rs 50 for producing rice. Here in land B we have again got 150kg of rice after the harvest. Here, we can conclude that:
  • Agricultural Productivity of A= Agricultural Productivity of B
  • Agricultural Efficiency of A< Agricultural Efficiency of B
• Agricultural Efficiency is dependent upon the physical quality of land, which is measured in terms of PPU (Potential Productivity per unit).

Calculation Of Agricultural Productivity

Agricultural Productivity has been measured by several methods, some of them are:

1. Per – Hectare yield :

• It is the most accepted method but doesn’t give the correct assessment.
• In this method the crop selection or crop choice is a prerequisite to achieving higher productivity e.g. If in sub-humid area rice is cultivated, the yield is lower but in the same area, if millets are cultivated, the yield per ha is increased.

2. Per – capital output in agriculture to the male workers

• This is also not a perfect method because it doesn’t give the total value of agriculture per capital on the given piece of land.
• Example: In coffee gardens each crop of coffee will fetch higher monetary value per male labour employed than the male workers employed in the paddy fields.

3. Jasbir Singh Method:

• Jasbir Singh has proposed a unique method for the measurement of Agricultural Productivity which is in terms of monetary value earned from agriculture per capital labour employed.
• He proposed that the agricultural productivity is the summation of the product of output of production of the crop and its market price, from which the cost of production is subtracted.
• Agricultural Productivity= ∑( Pij*Mij)-Cop
• Here P is output or production in quantity of the crop, M is the Market price and Cop is the cost of Production.

4. Kendall’s Ranking coefficient Method

• Kendall’s method is based on statistical techniques and it has greater acceptability across the world.
• It was applied in 1991 and again in 2005-06.
• In this method, a given region is first divided into units and the total no. of crops grown in the given region is enumerated. E.g. A region X is divided into 50 unit areas, where 8 crops: rice, wheat, cotton, oilseeds, sugarcane, pulses, jowar, bajra, is listed.
• The calculation of the coefficient of Agricultural Productivity is done by the formula given below

• Calculation of Agricultural productivity in case of Punjab by Kendall’s method is given below:

• The average ranked position of all the units of the region is thus calculated and then arranged in an ascending or descending array. The array is divided into five equal parts to obtain the very low, low, medium, high, and very high Agricultural Productivity region. In the above example, our region is Punjab; similarly, it is done for the whole India.
• Please note if the index value is lower, the Agricultural Productivity or efficiency is greater.
• In 1991, India was divided into 80 regions and 8 crops were selected for the assessment.
• In 2005-06 it was divided into 120 regions with 11 crops.
• Finally, the index classified India into 5 regions which is depicted in the tale give below:

The five regions according to above categorization are:

• Region I: Punjab-Haryana plains, Ganganagar/ Hanumangarh districts. Rohilkhands plains, Ganga Yamuna doab, Shahbad distt, Lower Bengal Delta, Kishna Godawari Delta, Kaveri Delta. (Reasons for higher productivity are the same as Cropping Intensity).
• Region II: River valleys of the peninsula, Eastern coastal plains, Northern Bengal Delta, Middle Gangetic plain, Kaveri basin, Malabar coast
• Region III: Chhattisgarh basin, river basins of Maharashtra and Karnataka eg. Tungbhadra, Khandesh, Vidarbha, Rayalseema, Gujarat plains, Baghelkhand, Malwa plateau.
• Region IV: Jharkhand, Eastern Rajasthan, Purvanchal hills, Rain shadow plateaus of South India e.g. Telangana.
• Region V: Jammu & Kashmir, the Himalayan region, and Western Rajasthan.