Effect of Climate, Growth and Decomposition Analysis of Maize in India

Maize is third most important cereal crop in India after rice and wheat. Maize can be grown under various agro-climatic zones.

Aims:

To study the effect of temperature, rainfall and crop are on crop yield in maize in India.

To study Compound Annual Growth Rate of area, production and productivity of maize in India.

To study percentage contribution of area, yield and their interaction to maize production in India.

Study Design: Only secondary data has been considered for the present study. Maize in India is considered for study purpose.

Data Considered: All the data required for the study is obtained from Indiastat website. The impact of climatic variables on yield is studied by using data for a period of 28 year i.e., from 1992-93 to 2019-20. For calculating CAGR and for decomposition analysis data from 1950-51 to 2019-20 were considered.

Methodology: Ordinary Least Squares method, Compound Annual Growth Rate(CAGR) and decomposition analysis were tools employed for the study.

Results: For every 10c rise in temperature, the yield of maize decreased by 1.6 units. For every 1 mm increase in rainfall, the yield increased by 0.05 units and for every thousand hectares increase in temperature, the crop yield increased by nearly 1.37 units. Temperature, Rainfall, crop area and time explain 89 per cent of variation in maize yield. Highest and significant growth rate of 3.39 per cent per annum was observed in area during the period II i.e., from 1960-61 to 1969-70. Similarly, in the case of production and yield a highest and significant growth rate of 7.32 and 4.03 per cent respectively were observed during the period I i.e., 1950-51 to 1959-60. For the entire study period i.e., from 1950-51 to 2019-20 significant and positive growth rates of 1.26, 3.34, and 2.05 per cent per annum were observed in area, production and yield respectively. For the entire period, the contribution of interaction effect is high (58.30%) followed by yield (28.73%) and area effects(12.97%). The results revealed that area and yield effect contributes more to production than their interaction when data is considered for a shorter period (10 years) whereas the interaction effect contributes more to production if the period considered is of longer duration(70 years).

Conclusion: Care should be taken by the government in the supply of hybrid maize seeds to farmers. Farmers should be educated about the effect of climatic variables on maize yield and they are also trained in following an improved package of practices.