Has Green Revolution Bypassed Coarse Cereals? The Indian Experience

This paper analysed the growth performance of non-rice crop sectors by estimating total factor productivity (TFP) growth for the selected coarse cereals viz., maize, sorghum and pearl millet in India. The analysis indicates that the TFP growth contributed substantially to the output growth of coarse cereals over the past three decades. The TFP growth was higher in those states where coverage of irrigation was relatively high. TFP grew at an average of 1.4 percent per annum through out the Green Revolution (GR) period for sorghum in the sate of Maharashtra where about half of the India’s sorghum area is concentrated mostly under rainfed conditions. Although small in absolute terms over the past three decades, the overall findings suggest that GR technologies have contributed considerably to output growth of coarse cereals. The contribution of technological progress was considerably higher in those regions where MVs were adopted under irrigated/semi-irrigated conditions. This TFP’s contribution could further be seen more visibly if some irrigation and policy support are also provided to the coarse cereals.