Has Green Revolution Bypassed Coarse Cereals? The Indian Experience

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