FOODGRAINS PRODUCTIVITY IN INDIA AND SUBSTITUTION BETWEEN CLIMATIC AND NON-CLIMATIC FACTORS
The present research paper tries to analyze the impact of climatic and non-climatic factors on productivity of
foodgrains in India. The climatic and non-climatic factors have been defined with the help of composite index.
The climatic factor is represented by rainfall measured in terms of millimeter (mm), CO2 emission in metric tonnes
per capita and maximum & minimum temperature in centigrade. The non-climatic factor include area under
cultivation in million hectares, area under assured means of irrigation as percentage of total cultivated area, size
of labour and use of fertilizers in lakh tonnes. The Cobb-Douglas production function result shows that both
climatic and non-climatic variables are positively associated with Yield of foodgrains production and results are
statistically significant. As compared to climatic factors, the non-climatic factor has emerged influential in
affecting the productivity of foodgrains in India. As far as the substitutions between the two factors are concerned,
apparently it looks that non-climatic factor can be substituted for the climatic factor but to what extant this
substitution could be cost effective, depends on the relative price of the two factors.
Foodgrains Productivity, Climatic Factors, Non-climatic Factors, Cobb-Douglas Production Function, Factor Substitution.