Trend of changing growth rate of major spices – assessing the impact of agricultural policies in Bangladesh

The study examined the trend of changing in area, production and yield of major spices and the decomposition of output growth systematically documented in pre and post policy implementation period in Bangladesh. Compound growth rates of area, production and yield were estimated by fitting semi-log trend equation using data for 1975/786 to 2007/08. Decomposition analysis of growth was used to measure the relative contribution of area, yield, cropping pattern and interaction to the total output changed for the individual spices. The performance of spices sector was immensely better during the post policy implementation period, than that of pre policy period. During the post policy implementation period, growth rate of area, production, and yield grew at the higher rate than that of pre policy implementation period. The main sources of increasing spices production in post policy implementation period noticed mainly due to area expansion and yield increased through variety substitution.