A Trend Analysis on Area, Production and Productivity of Kharif/winter Rice in Assam

Background: With the growing population of Assam self sufficiency is important to fulfill the demand of food grains as well as nutritional security of the people is another challenge. Cultivation of winter rice, locally known as “Sali dhan”, is an important agricultural practice in the state. Methods: The study was conducted for the state of Assam to analyse the trend in area, production and productivity of kharif/winter rice for a period of 50 years. The discussion was based on the secondary data collected from 1970-71 to 2019-20. The study period was divided into three sub-periods, viz., period I (1970-71 to 1994-95), period II (1994-95 to 2019-20) and overall period (1970-71 to 2019-20). Compound annual growth rates were computed for estimating the growth trends of area, production and productivity of rice in Assam whereas Cuddy-della Valle index of instability was used to estimate the instability. Result: Instability indices for production have been found highest which indicates a lees peril in growing of kharif/winter rice in Assam. Positive growth rate and low instability have been recorded for area, production and productivity for all the periods. It was also observed from the analysis that the area effect and productivity effect was more than that of interaction effect. Amongst area and productivity effect, the productivity effect was found greater than area effect.