Growth and instability analysis of chickpea production in Maharashtra: A district-wise analysis

This paper examines the growth and instability analysis of chickpea production in Maharashtra state using district wise time series data on area, production and productivity pertaining to the period 1980–81 to 2009–10. The period has been divided decade-wise into three parts, viz. Period-I (1980–81 to 1989–90), Period-II (1990–91 to 1999–2000) and Period-III (2000–01 to 2009–10). The exponential function Y=Ab^t was fitted to the data to compute compound growth rates. These compound growth rates were tested for their significance. Similarly, instability in area, production and productivity was measured through Co-efficient of Variance (CV%). During the overall period, the growth performance of chickpea in Maharashtra state as a whole showed significant positive growth rate in area (2.33%), production (3.45%) and productivity (2.60%). The highest compound growth rate of chickpea acreage was observed in Yevatmal (7.64%) district. Howeverincase of productivity, growth rate was found to be highest in Aurangabad (3.78%) district of the state. During the overall period of study, the state as a whole recordedinstability in area, production and productivity which was to the tune of 37.47, 60.30 and 27.33%, respectively. The reasons for such instability may be attributed to shifting in crops priority less appropriate production technology are preferences towards more remunerative crops. Further, by taking into account of both growth rates and instability index of state as a whole during the overall period was used for grouping the district(s) in different categories. Among the categories, high growth rate and low instability was considered the most preferred category.