Exploring the Performance of Wheat Crop in India and China

Background: Wheat is pre-eminent among the world’s crops in regard to its importance as a staple food of mankind. India is the second largest producer of wheat in the world after China and contributes more than 12 per cent to the global wheat basket. The most important crop after rice in India is wheat and occupies approximately 27.80 million ha area. India has witnessed a significant increase in total food grain production of 233.88 million tons. On the other hand, India is also the second largest wheat consumer after China. Thus, wheat and its various products play an increasingly significant role in managing India’s food security. Methods: The data of wheat production, area harvested and yield for last six decades have been procured from FAO, Government of India. The change in production function of a crop has been estimated by using linear function and compound growth rate. Further, the Cuddy-Della Valle Index has also been calculated. Result: The study showed an average increase in area, production and yield of wheat crop by 144.53 per cent, 896.54 per cent and 307.53 per cent in case of India, respectively whereas in China, the area was decreased by 7.81 per cent and the increase in production and yield by 279.97 per cent and 238.68 per cent, respectively. The wheat production in India and China has been increased by 0.000265 per cent and 0.000428 per cent, respectively due to yield effect and the change due to interaction between yield and area were 0.049576 per cent and -0.00855 per cent, respectively. Further, the results by linear regression model and compound growth rate model were, the production and yield of wheat in China showed highly significant growth rate of 1.033 per cent and 1.035 per cent giving an increase of 20.532 lakh tons per year and 0.881 quintal per hectare yield every year as compared to India but the area was found to be good fitted for India i.e; 1.014 per cent giving an annual increase of 2.949 lakh hectares. The instability was low in case of area, production and yield because of the slow growth rate. The findings of this study have far-reaching implications that will have a significant impact on the planning, execution and design of appropriate methodologies in order to achieve meaningful and fruitful results not only for wheat growers, but also for other sectors that essentially provide feedback to agencies involved in various demonstration programs.