Growth and trends in area, production and productivity of Sorghum and Bajra crops in Middle Gujarat zone

The analysis of growth is usually used in economic studies to find out the trend of a particular variable over a period of time and used for making policy decisions. The growth in the area, production and productivity of sorghum and bajra crops in middle Gujarat zone was estimated using different linear, nonlinear and time series (ARIMA) models. The compound growth rates, instability indices and shift in area during last five, five year plan periods also worked out in the study. For a period of 53 years, time-series data from 1960-61 to 2012-13 on area, production and productivity of sorghum and bajra crops for middle Gujarat zone were collected from Directorate of Agriculture, Gujarat state, Gandhinagar. In case of polynomial models, exponential and linear model was found fitted for the productivity trends of sorghum and bajra crop, respectively. In case of ARIMA models, ARIMA (0,1,1) was evolved as the best fitted trend functions for productivity trends of both the crops. None of the model was found fitted for the trends in area and production of sorghum as well as bajra crop. Productivity of sorghum was witnessed of technological and varietal improvement as it had positive and significant growth rate of 5.93% per annum with decreasing area (-7.96% per annum) and production (-3.17% per annum). The area of bajra crop also have negative growth rate of -1.83% per annum, but the production had positive growth rate of 2.80% due to improvement in productivity by 4.95% per annum.