Productivity and Efficiency of Wheat Production in India

This study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to estimate Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) of the wheat production in India from 1981-1982 to 1999-2000. Five major wheat producing States were classified into agriculturally developed and backward ones: Punjab and Haryana as developed and UP, MP and Rajasthan as backward ones. The Malmquist productivity measures were decomposed into two components: technical change index and efficiency change index. The result shows that total factor productivity has risen in both categories of the states. Technical progress has been most significant factor to wheat productivity growth and will remain crucial to productivity growth in the backward states. Low efficiency in these states indicates a great potential to increase productivity through improving technical efficiency.