Rice Production and its Instability in Gujarat: A Decomposition Approach

This paper has examined the extent of instability in rice production in Gujarat and has identified the factors causing this instability. The study has been conducted in the five major rice-producing districts in south Gujarat region by collecting secondary data from published sources for the past 30 years, viz. 1982–83 to 2011–12. The growth rates of area, production and productivity of rice during this period were 0.41 per cent, 1.25 per cent and 0.83 per cent per annum, respectively. The growth estimates depict negligible increase in area and production of rice. The magnitude of instability in area and production of rice has been found higher in all the selected districts as compared to the state. The variability in production has been higher compared to variability in area and productivity in this crop. It can be inferred that wide fluctuations in the production of rice crop have been due to the high variability in its productivity. The future development programmes should envisage on increasing yield to bring stabilization in production of the crop. The area instability also needs to be reduced for which more investments on research and development in rice production technology are needed in the state.