Performance of wheat crop in Maharashtra

Abstract

In a predominantly agriculture economy, the overall level of economic growth depends to greater extent, on the rate of growth in agriculture. The large increase in the production of foodgrain was realized after mid sixties commonly described as effect of “Green Revolution. Results in all time high foodgrain production record of 255 million tonnes in 2012-13 as against 50 million tonnes in 1950-51. Among the major cereals, wheat contributes 17 per cent to total cereal production. Maharashtra ranks 8th in wheat production in India with 1.31 million tones production which is only 1.39 per cent of Indias wheat production. For food security, production of serials is much important than the production of cash crops hence, there is a need to increase the production of serials. An attempt has been made in this study to find out the changes and trends in area production and productivity of wheat in Maharashtra. In all 53 years data has been collected for present study form the year 1960-63 to 2010-13. The area under wheat in Maharashtra had slightly declined from 8.98 lakh hectares to 8.43 lakh hectares, the production of wheat in the state had increased by 208.75 per cent during entire study period. The highest increase in the production was noticed in Western Maharashtra region (294.51%) followed by Marathwada (222.26%) and Vidarbha (127.42%), respectively. The productivity of wheat in the state had increased by 228 per cent during the period of 53 years. The highest increase in the productivity was noticed in Western Maharashtra (239.34%) followed by Marathwada (225.57%) and Vidarbha (217.23%), respectively.The area under wheat in the state decreased significantly at the rate of 0.36 per cent per annum while production and productivity increased significantly at the rate of 2.84 and 3.21 per cent per annum. It implied that the production of wheat in the state had been increased mainly due to increase in productivity. The productivity of wheat though has increased; the proportionate area under wheat did not increase in the State. The efforts need to be made to increase the area under wheat. This can be done by making available the irrigation water either from existing cropping pattern or by increasing its potential. Lack of knowledge, high cost of seed, non-availability of proper seed and fertilizers, fear of poor germination were the major constraints in adoption of wheat production technology.