Tracking the Performance of Wheat Production in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh is the largest wheat growing and producing a state in India and undergone rapid strides since the green revolution. The present paper tracks the performance of wheat production in Uttar Pradesh based on the secondary data for 70 districts (1998–99 to 2014–15). Compound annual growth rate, instability indices, efficiency gap and Gini inequality index were computed to analyse the performance trend. Findings indicated that wheat area registered an increasing trend, while production and productivity had irregular trends over the years. A large number of districts in the area (36), production (36) and productivity (30) were found under positive growth coupled with low instability which is a good indicator of performance. Conversely, the next majority of districts were registered under positive growth-high instability quadrant in productivity (26) and production (20), which warrants for appropriate strategies in terms of risk management. All the selected variables showed an increase in variation over the years. However, relatively high variation and inequality were observed in productivity and production, respectively, in comparison to the area. District level differences in productivity led to performance gaps in Uttar Pradesh. The study suggested for formulating new research and policy interventions followed by regional prioritization for additional wheat production as well as improving the crop acreage.