Abstract:
Agriculture in Odisha during rabi season is based mainly on pulse crops. The economic
reforms in the 1991-92, affected the agriculture scenario of Odisha following which our
study period (1970-71 to 2013-14) has been divided into pre-reform (1970-71 to 1991-92)
and post reform (1992-93 to 2013-14) period. Attempts have been taken to make a
comparative study of the growth rate and instability of area, production and yield of rabi
pulses in the two periods. For studying the growth rate and instability, appropriate model
which could best possibly describe the behavior of the phenomenon are fitted by applying
spline regression technique with kink or knot placed at the year of transition from pre–
reform period to post- reform period which is considered to be 1991-92. The possible
spline regression models which could fit very well to the area, production and yield of
pulses are identified from the scatter plot of the data. Then by help of residual diagnostics
and model fit statistics, the best fit models are obtained. Using the best fit model, average
growth rates of area, production and yield are found. Coefficient of variation is used as a
measure of instability. The difference in growth rate of area, production and yield from the
pre-reform to post –reform period is found to be highly significant but negative in case of
area and production, whereas, in case of yield it is negative non-signifiacnt. The difference
in coefficient of variation between the two periods is non-significant for area, production
and yield of rabi pulses.
