Vol. 10, Special Issue 8 (2021)

Author(s):
Om Prakash Verma, OP Maurya and Hemant Kumar

Abstract:
Rural population in India is largely engaged in vegetable cultivation apart from traditional agricultural practices. Vegetable cultivation has gained impetus in a few decades due to increasing health awareness, population growth, urbanization and better marketing facilities. Potato cultivation in India plays a vital role towards socio-economic development in the rural areas by mobilizing rural resources and generating higher income and employment opportunities. The potato production in the country has gone up from 1.66 to 51.31 million tons between 1950-51 and 2017-18, registering a modest growth. During the period of study the area has increased from 0.24 to 2.14 million ha, while the yield has steadily increased from 6917 kg/ha to 23967 kg/ha. In the present study data were broadly partitioned into seven decades in order to demonstrate the trend of potato production in a more convincing way and simple manner. The compound growth rates of area, production and yield of potato was found positive for almost all the decades of the study period. Overall there was positive growth rate of area, production and yield. The area effect has a greater say in potato each decade except seventies. The area and yield instability were of medium order and production instability is of high order. Overall the change in production is due to area and interaction of area and yield effect.