Growth and Instability in Chickpea Production in India : A State Level Analysis

Chickpea is an important pulse crop in India. The production of chickpea is stagnate and its variability is increased in the past three decades. The present study is an attempt to examine the pattern of growth, variability and the sources of growth and instability in production of chickpea at state level. The time series data for the period 1971-2000 regarding production, area and yield of chickpea has been used to compute compound growth rates, Coefficient of variation, Coppock’s Instability Index (CII) and for performing decomposition analysis to attain the objectives. The average production of chickpea increased by 7% from 4.8 mt in 1970/85 to 5.2 mt in 1986/2000, while coefficient of variation increased from 14% to 17 % during the same period. As a result most of the states fall in low growth-high-risk category in chickpea production. Only Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa fall under high growth-low risk category. Yield contributed positively and area contributed negatively to increase in chickpea production between the periods. Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Karnataka contributed to increase in production, while Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana contributed negatively. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh along with change in interstate covariance contributed large chunk of increase in variability in countries chickpea production. Change in area variance and change in area-yield covariances and change in mean yields are contributed to increase in variability in chickpea production, while change in mean areas helped to decrease production variability. The correlations between production, area and yield across states increased during the period, more number of states exhibited area correlations than yield correlations. Part of the increase in area variance and area-yield variances in chickpea production due to increased price variability, more erratic rainfall patterns, and fluctuations in supply of modern inputs like pesticides. And also due to adoption of improved varieties with same genetic base across state, which increases biotic and abiotic stresses