Agricultural Output Cost-Pricing Analysis: Issues in the Context of Economic Liberalisation in India

The new economic policy set in motion since mid-1991 has progressively started posing new challenges to as well as creating new opportunities for the Indian economy. Direct and indirect impact of these policy changes are bound to affect the agricultural sector of the Indian economy. It is argued that impact of overall liberalisation of the economy would be higher investment and growth in agriculture induced by favourable terms of trade. In all these arguments dominant role of market forces, both domestic and international is visualized to be of crucial importance. In keeping with these policy changes, therefore, Indian agriculture not only has to become cost effective but also competitive internationally as well as in domestic market. In this changing scenario and under changing circumstances-it would be of major interest to examine and analyse the extent to which the technological change introduced in Indian agriculture in seventies has had wider spread as also the cost effectiveness of such technological changes. The present study is an attempt in that direction. The study envisages to examine the nature of and extent of changes in production, input use patterns, factor input proportions, cost structure and value of output brought about by the interaction of price factor and technological change in agriculture during the last two decades.