Technological Transformation of Agriculture: A Study from Assam

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One Major limitation of the Green Revolution has been its slow diffusin from the regions of its initial success to the rest of the country. For Instance, its High Yielding Variety seeds based new technology is yet to make substantial impact on the predominantly rice growing agriculture of Eastern India. In the state of Assam in this belt, a half of the State Domestic Product still originates in the primary sector. About 70% of the groes cropped area is under rice. Official statistics claim impressive growth of area under High Yielding Rice Varieties. But that growth does not seem to have led to any significant appreciation of productivity of the crop. With the fertilizer consumption rate only at one-tenth of national average, the yield rates of principal crops in the state continue to dip farther below the all-India ragtes. Against this bleak opverall picture, the field studies of the author reveal signs of progress and positive developments at the grass-root level. About 80% of sample farmers, irrespective of farm size and tenurial status, have adopted the High Yielding Varieties. In most cases though adoption has so far been partial and not fully effective. The unsuitability of the new varieties to low-lying and food prone areas partly explain the inability of the farmers to use them more extensively in the rainy Kharif season. But for the rest, effective utilization ofl the yield potentials of the new technology is constrained by the lack of adequate infrastructual support. With a farming community receptive to innovations, a technological transformation of agriculture in Assam can be turned into reality by suitable policy measures to fill the lacunae in rural infrastructure.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR M.P. Bezbaruah

Madan Prasad Bezharuah, born on 1st December 1941 at Guwahati (Assam), is an IAS offcer of 1964 batch of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre. He has held many important assignments both in the Government of Assam and the Government of India. He was Secretary in Government of Assam in the Departments of Education, Health, Industries and Finance and Chairman of the Assam State Electricity Board. He was Home Secretary of Assam from January 1986 to August 1990. He served as a Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and Principal Adviser in the Planning Commission. During 1990-94, he was Minister (Economic) in the High Commission of India, London. In this assignment, he was closely involved in the formation of the ‘Indo-British Partnership’. He was also a short-term Consultant to the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana. He was also Chairman of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) for 2000-2001. He has written two books, Indian Tourism: Beyond the Millennium and Frontiers of New Tourism, and a number of literary articles in vernacular magazines as well as articles on popular economic topics in regional English newspapers. He has contributed articles/reviews to – Contemporary South Asia, Oxford; and Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai. He secured a first class M.A. degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics and obtained the Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Harvard University, USA.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Technological Transformation of Agriculture: A Study from Assam
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
8170995736
Length
viii+164p., Tables; Appendix; Notes; Reference; Bibliography; Index; 21cm.
Subjects