Dynamics of Oilseeds Production and Decomposition of output Components of Oilseeds in Bihar

Abstract

India is the fourth largest producer of oilseeds and accounts for about 15-20 percent of global oilseeds area, 6-7 percent vegetable oil production and 9-10 percent of total edible oils consumption. Among different oilseeds, groundnut, rapeseed-mustard and soyabean accounts for about 80 percent of area and 87 percent of production of oilseed in the country during 2018-19. Currently, share of oilseeds are 14% of the total area under major crops. Day by day, the demand for consumption of vegetable oil is increasing in Bihar but the area under cultivation of oilseeds is decreasing. In Bihar, the area under cultivation of oilseeds was 228.3 thousand hectares in 1986-87 and it has decreased to 113.14 thousand hectares in 2019-20. This paper investigates the trends in area, production and yield of oilseeds in the State of Bihar. The study period was from 1990-91 to 2019-20 and it had divided into 3 periods: 1990-91 to 1999-2000, 2000-01 to 2009-10 and 2010-11 to 2019-20 to have an understanding of decadal performance. The results clearly showed that the growth rate performance of area, production and yield of oilseed in the region declined sharply from period 1 to 3. The study witnessed that more than half of the area under the crop in the State suffered from low growth rate in area. The comparison of production growth rates of all the major oilseeds revealed that Sunflower showed better performance followed by rapeseed and mustard, During the study period from 1990-91 to 2019-20, only yield (2.02%) showed positive growth rate whereas area (-2.6%) and production (-0.62%) showed negative growth rate. The decomposition analysis of growth suggests that sources of output growth in Bihar was the same in all the three periods as the major contribution was yield effect followed by area effect. Reduction in yield gap and adoption of new technology can improve Bihar as well as India’s oilseeds production and make India self-sufficient in oilseeds production and consumption.