Black Gram Cultivation And Production In India: An Analysis

Abstract

This study analyzes the performance of black gram in India and Tamil Nadu from 2003-04 to 2022-23 using secondary data from the Ministry of Agriculture's. This is mainly considered to include area, production, yield, growth rates, variability, and stability. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) and Co-efficient of Variation (CV) were employed to assess growth, variability, and instability, respectively. The decadal analysis of data shows a good performance in the growth rate of production, area and yield of black gram in India. There had been an increase in the production of black gram by 4.70 per cent per annum, increase in area by 2.70 per cent per annum and increase of yield by 2.20 per cent per annum. The coefficient of variations in black gram recorded 33.69 per cent. This wide variation was accompanied by variations in area and yield, which were 22.49 per cent and 15.54 per cent respectively. In Tamil Nadu theproduction of black gram increased by 8.60 per cent per annum from 2003-04 to 2022-23. There was also increase in area by 4.30 per cent and yield by 4.10 per cent per annum during the same period. Thus, the continued increase in area as well as yield contributed to the increase in production. Tamil Nadu recorded a variation of 52.45 per cent in black gram production. This wide variation was accompanied by variations in area and yield, which were 26.49 per cent and 35.34 per cent respectively in Area, Production and Yield of Black grams in Tamil Nadu. In Cuddalore District the area under black gram increased by 5.20 per cent per annum and yield by 0.24 per cent per annum contributing to an increase in production by 5.40 per cent per annum. It is also observed that black gram production experienced considerable variation of 30.09 per cent. For the same period, the rate of variation in yield and area were 2.079 and 29.15 per cent respectively. This is due to high cost of human labour, non-availability of high yielding verities, attack of weeds, unfavorable climate conditions, high cost of plant protection, vulnerability to pests and fluctuations in prices.