Changing Pattern of Agricultural Productivity in Brahmaputra Valley

Abstract

Agricultural sector is dominant in the economy of the Brahmaputra valley which shares more than 50 per cent to the total gross domestic product and employs about 70 per cent of the workforce in it. In spite of favourable agro-ecological (soilweather) conditions for agricultural development and growth, the land use trends were being observed as stagnant and steady during the 1970s and 1980s. However, there was a marginal increase in the net sown area (NSA) and crop yield during the mid-1990s when the processes of expansion and intensification in agricultural land use were accelerated under the significant impact of green revolution in this part of the country (Singh and Sharma, 2003). There are many dimensions of viewing intensification in the agricultural practices as studied by Nath (1969), Bhat and Learnmonth (1968), Singh (1974), Bhalla and Tyagi (1989) and Singh (1994) giving regional account of Indian agriculture for its development and planning. Such studies seek and search the weakness of agricultural growth and development processes in its regional context highlighting the areas of weak infrastructure, suitable cropping pattern in relation to existing agro-ecological conditions, the emerging production pattern in its socio-economic setup and the optimal spatial organisation of agricultural land uses. However, it is a fact that agriculture in India is foodgrain dominated and labour intensive because of smaller size of land holdings (Wharton, Jr 1969). Such relevant aspects of agricultural intensification and productivity increase were taken up by way of testing the validity of Boserup's (1965, 1981) study of populationproduction nexus in agricultural activities. After the use of regression analysis of increasing density of rural population (as independent variable) and crop-intensity (as dependent variable), Das (1984: pp.90-95) concluded that the thesis is valid for the plains of Assam during the 1970s when there was not much use of modern technology in the agricultural practices interpreting that there is about 50 per cent