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A method for measuring technological advancement associated with irrigated agriculture is described and tested herein. The method was based upon the Solow Model of technical change which enables the computation of an index of technological change over time. The method involved derivation of aggregate production functions from time series data for selected irrigated and non-irrigated areas. Shifts in the production functions over time were then measured by computing indexes of technological change. The changes in the indexes for irrigated and nonirrigated agriculture over time were compared to determine the effect that irrigation had on the rate of adoption of new technology. The application of the method involved comparing irrigated with non-irrigated farming enterprise as a whole. The study area was Udumelpet Taluk in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu.
Irrigation, Technological change, Crop production, Irrigated agriculture, Non-irrigated agriculture
