Performance of Indian agriculture : a districtwise study

This book analyses the spatial patterns of performance of Indian agriculture during 1962-65 to 1970 73 at a disaggregated district level. The area under, and output of, 19 major crops in the 289 districts in India both during the 'sixties and the 'seventies constitutes the data base for the study. Since agriculture accounts for a major proportion of economic activity in all parts of India, the regional picture in terms of levels and growth of agricultural output also provides an indicator of the relative affluence and poverty of rural masses in various parts.

The district level analysis reveals great disparities in agricultural per formance both with respect to levels of land productivity and also with respect to rates of growth of output of 19 crops taken together and severally. The maps contained in the book provide a vivid picture of these contrasts.

The determinants of high produc tivity and high growth are not fully investigated in this study. Neverthe less, what emerges is that the agri culturally rich areas in India are the ones that make a relatively very high use of modern current and capital inputs. The same is more or less true about the high growth areas.

The spatial patterns of levels and growth of individual crops as pre sented in the tables and maps are equally revealing. The book con tains a detailed description of the performance of each of the 19 crops covered by the study.

This is one of the very few studies that has been undertaken at a disaggregated district level. Its results have been widely quoted and some data and tables have been in corporated in the Fifth and the Draft Five Year Plan-1978-83.