%0 Journal Article
%T Growth and Variability in the Production of Crops in West Bengal Agriculture
%A Bidyut Kumar Ghosh
%J Trends in Agricultural Economics
%D 2010
%I 
%X West Bengal is one of the agriculturally progressive states in India. The general showings of West Bengal agriculture since the eighties are impressive. Initiation of some institutional and technological changes mainly the Operation Barga and the introduction of high yielding varieties during the eighties have turned West Bengal into a progressive food grain producing state. This study attempts at studying the growth of production of some important crops as well as the variability in the crop production across the districts of the state. Using the kinked exponential methodology for growth estimation, the study reveals that the agricultural growth of major crops in West Bengal declined significantly since the mid nineties from an impressive growth rate of eighties. The decomposition of output growth of crops shows that yield growth plays the most important role behind the output growth. The contribution of the extension of area was next to yield factor. Also with the help of Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test, the study makes it clear that the crop production variability varies significantly across the districts and, in general, the higher growth path is associated with the higher degree of variability.
%K cropping intensity
%K cropping pattern
%K Growth rate acceleration
%K deceleration
%K variability
%U http://docsdrive.com/pdfs/ansinet/tae/2010/135-146.pdf