1Division of Agricultural Economics, IARI, New Delhi.
2National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi.
This paper is drawn from the first author's Ph. D. dissertation under the supervision of the second author submitted to Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-12. The authors gratefully acknowledge the anonymous referee for comments and valuable suggestions.
It is reported that growth in total factor productivity (TFP) is decelerating in the Green Revolution region practicing rice-wheat cropping system. The question now arises that what is happening in the regions where growth started at a later stage? Is the sustainability in such systems under threat too and if so, what are the underlying factors? This paper aims to answer these questions. It analyses trends in instability of crop yields, TFP and diversification of the system. The results showed that crop yields have become more stable over time and the system is moving towards specialization. The growth in the output and input indices was 4.08 and 2.29 percent, respectively, giving a growth of 1.79 percent in TFP during 1970–97. The results of regression analysis showed that research stock and HYVs of wheat have positive and significant impact on the growth of TFP, contributing 76 percent and 24 percent respectively to the growth in TFP. The estimated marginal internal rate of return to the public research investment was 139 percent. The study concludes that for sustainability of the system, research should emphasize on yield enhancement and this requires adequate investment in agricultural research and development.
