Study of Growth and Instability in Food Grain Production of Odisha: A Statistical Modelling Approach

Abstract

Agricultural scenario of a state is reflected by the analysis of irs food grain production status. In Odisha, food grains share a major portion of the total cropped area both in kharif and rabi. In kharif season, cereals form the major share of food whereas, in rabi the major share id by oulses. Agriculture of Odisha is affected by the economic reforms in the 1991-92, 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 1013-14) period. Attempts have been taken to make a comparative study of the growth rate and instability of area, production and yield of food grain in the two perods. 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 food grains 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 postreform period is found to be highly significant but negative in case of area and production and positive in case of yield. The difference in coefficient of variation between the two periods is highly significant and positive for area, production and yield.