Abstract
One of the decisive factors determining agricultural yields is known to be climatic conditions, typically temperature and rainfall, which have a direct impact on agricultural production. To date, most of the empirical studies on how agro-climatic factors affect agricultural productivity have focused on developed countries. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the impacts of climatic factors on cereal yields have been mitigated during the Green Revolution period, using a district-level panel data set. Given India’s diverse cropping patterns and agro-climate, it will be useful to review the experience of India’s agricultural growth with particular reference to the impact of GR technology and climate on crop yields, so as to draw effective lessons for facilitating agricultural growth in other parts of the developing world, including sub-Saharan Africa.
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Notes
- 1.
Cavatassi et al. (2011) found in eastern Ethiopia that the early-maturing sorghum MVs adopted in their study site can cope with downward yield risks associated with moderate droughts, while the TVs (traditional varieties) are more tolerant of extreme drought events.
- 2.
As far as simple mergers and separations are concerned, the data can be adjusted by arithmetic operations, in which post-merger or pre-separation district bordering is adopted so as to construct a long-term panel. Otherwise, we used our best guess, including temporal interpolation and extrapolation.
- 3.
As for normal climate, we also tried using 5-year moving averages to check the robustness. The results are largely the same. The shortcoming of using a longer period is that it leads to a reduced number of observations.
- 4.
Recently, tubewell and pump irrigation, which can be installed by farmers, have become increasingly common.
- 5.
When the Hausman test fails and returns a negative probability statistic, we opt for the fixed effect model for safety as the fixed effect estimators are always consistent even if not efficient.
- 6.
In India, wheat is mostly grown in the dry winter season, while most of rice, maize, and millet, and more than a half of sorghum are cultivated in the summer monsoon season. The difference between the average summer temperature and the average winter temperature is 7–8°C according to IMD.
- 7.
- 8.
It is assumed that the marginal product of labor is sufficiently low.
- 9.
According to Cavatassi et al. (2011), the sorghum MVs adopted in eastern Ethiopia have early-maturing traits and, thus, can better cope with downward yield risks associated with moderate droughts.
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Tsusaka, T., Otsuka, K. (2013). The Declining Impacts of Climate on Crop Yields During the Green Revolution in India, 1972–2002. In: Otsuka, K., Larson, D. (eds) An African Green Revolution. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5760-8_4
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