aDepartment of Agricultural Economics, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia-741 252, West Bengal
bDepartment of Agronomy, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia-741 252, West Bengal
cICARDA South Asia-China Regional Program, CGIAR Block, NASC Complex, DPS Marg, New Delhi-110 012
dDivision of Agricultural Economics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012
Online published on 20 November, 2017.
The study has evaluated the technological impact on lentil cultivators on adoption of improved package of practices over the traditional lentil growers in Nadia district, West Bengal, DEA Malmquist Index followed by Bisliah Method of Decomposition techniques. The study has revealed that it is not the efficiency level of the lentil growers but the technical change that had contributed to the overall TFP change of lentil in the state. There was a 9.42 per cent estimated change in productivity recorded over the traditional cultivators. A marked contribution in technological gap (12.55%) between improved and traditional yield was observed instead of gap attributable to change in input use level (−3.12%) which was less as compared to traditional method of cultivation. The technological gap has been dominated by the neutral change (167.05%) rather than non-neutral change (−154.50%) indicating uniform shift in production function. The average socio-economic composite score for the farmers under ICARDA (0.37) was sufficiently higher than in the traditional one (0.29), which was not up to the mark and needed improvement. Unavailability of suitable variety lentil seeds was the major constraint faced by lentil cultivators.
Technical efficiency, technological change, total factor productivity, lentil cultivation, West Bengal
