Structural Pattern and Growth Analysis of Rice Production in Odisha

Even though rice has high importance for food security and agricultural GDP in the agrarian economy of Odisha, production is constrained by several factors. The trends, patterns, and instability of key production parameters such as area, yield need to be studied to suggest insightful measures for the development of rice cultivation in the state. The resource use efficiency also assumes significance to determine the profitability of rice production. The study used both secondary and primary data and analyzed trend, instability, and resource use efficiency using compound annual growth method (CAGR), Cuddy-Della Valle Instability Index, and Cobb-Douglas production function respectively. While the area under rice in Odisha marked a negative annual growth (-0.18), the yield and productions have shown significant positive growth of 1.95 and 1.76% respectively for the period of 1960-2019. In respect of instability in production and productivity, moderate variability was observed. However, for the area, the instability is very less. The production function analysis has shown excessive usage of significant resources like labor, fertilizers, and pesticides. The ratio of marginal value product and marginal factor cost for these inputs were much less than one, thus suggesting resource use optimization for profit maximization. The considerable variability in rice production, area and productivity in Odisha should be responded with strategic and sustainable measures.