Spatio-temporal Changes in Area, Production and Productivity of Vegetables: A Review

Vegetable crops have an integral role in Indian agriculture as these provide food, nutritional and economic security along with producing higher returns per unit of area. These crops have higher productivity, shorter maturity cycle, better value leading to nutrition, higher income which ultimately provide improved livelihoods. The purpose of this article is to review the previous studies done on the trends in area, production and productivity of vegetables. Drawing upon the enormous information of various studies conducted between 2002 and 2020, the present article track the growth rates in area, production and yield and economics along with the factors affecting the yield of the vegetable crops. The tools employed in these studies predominantly included computation of compound annual growth rate for different periods, coefficient of variation (CV), percentages, seasonal indices and regression analysis. These studies indicated that growth of area, production and yield of most of the horticultural crops in the states as well as across thecountry was found statistically significant.The demand for vegetables is increasing and to cope up with the increasing demand, it becomes important to decide the strategies to increase the production. The changing pattern and trends in the growth of vegetable crops along with broad policy recommendations needed to boost the growth of horticultural crops in line with shifting demand were also reviewed.