Abridging the yield gap in eastern Indian states: Issues and challenges

Estimating and explaining yield gap is essential to guide for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems in order to keep pace with increasing food demand in India driven by population and income growth. Eastern Indian states contribute 40 percent of total area under paddy in India but yield level is not at par with other high productive regions of the country. Hence this region is considered as potential region for second green revolution in India. In this study empirical method was used to decompose yield gap into efficiency and resource yield gaps for paddy and wheat. Further, stochastic frontier analysis was employed to estimate inefficiency in production pattern by encompassing critical agronomic and socio-economic factors. Results showed that estimated yield gap is 10 to 30 percent for paddy and 2 to 15 percent in case of wheat. It was identified that, not only sub-optimal resource usages (e.g. fertilization, mechanization) but supra-optimal resource disposal also found detrimental for yield level very often (e.g. seed rate). Besides, frequent drought, flood and state specificity explains yield gap. Hence, it was suggested that proper resource utilization framework and institutional mechanism can be possible remedy to reduce yield gap instead of providing for material input support. Acknowledgement :