Chapter-III: Rice Production in Assam
3.5: Agro-ecological Zones in Assam and Rice Production
(NFSM).47 Area under SRI has been increased fast from 882.2 hectares in 2008-09 to 65150 hectares in 2012-13.
The scheme of NFSM-Rice, launched by the Government of India in 2007-08, has been implemented in 13 districts of Assam selected on the basis of low production and productivity of rice. After six years of implementation from 2007-08 to 2012-13 production of rice increased by 98 percent while productivity increased by 158 percent in the districts (Economic Survey, Assam, 2013-14). The CAGR of productivity and production of autumn rice during the last five years from 2006-07 to 2010-11 were 5.14 and 1.16 percent respectively while in winter rice, there has been a significant growth of 8.57 percent in productivity and 13.35 percent in production and the summer rice has a growth of 5.02 percent in productivity and 10.27 percent in production. The CAGR of total rice has been 8.01 percent in productivity and 11.53 percent in production.
6.42 percent of GCA and 8.65 percent of TPA. It has the highest acreage share under summer paddy (21.65% of GCA and 29.19% of TPA) compared to other zones. In the CBVZ, Boro rice area jumped from almost negligible area about a decade ago, to the highest share of 21.65 percent followed by LBVZ (13.28%) (Bhowmick, 2005; Mandal, 2011). The area share by rice culture (across the seasons) shows that winter rice occupied as high as 91 percent of total area in Upper Brahmaputra Valley Zone (UBVZ) during the triennium 1999-2001. However, it decreased to 74.18 percent in 2007-08, still highest across zones. But in other two seasonal variety of rice, the acreage share is lowest of all zones, 2.79 percent and 0.88 percent of GCA in autumn and summer paddy respectively. In Barak Valley Zone (BVZ), the acreage share of winter paddy is more than two third (67.84%) of its GCA and 81.85 percent TPA. This is followed by autumn paddy and summer paddy. Hill Zone (HZ) has the largest share of its GCA under winter paddy, 57.11 percent and 86.63 percent of TPA, followed by autumn paddy 8.02 percent.
It is the smallest zone with 5 percent area and 6 percent production of rice in the state (Bhowmick et al., 2005). With 82.88 percent of total paddy area in total cropped area, BVZ is the most paddy cultivated zone while the lowest share was observed at 65.93 percent in the HZ in 2007-08 (Basic Agricultural Statistics, Directorate of Agriculture, Govt. of Assam). The proportion of area under winter paddy has declined in all the agro- climatic zones except BVZ and UBZV which are relatively less prone to flood. The area share of autumn paddy has declined in all the zones. The proportion of areas under summer paddy has increased in all the zones except in BVZ (Statistical Hand Book Assam (various issues); Mandal (2010).
The acreage share of summer paddy has increased in all but Hill Zone during 1991-92 to 2007-08. Regarding the growth rate of area, a negative growth noticed in all but Hill Zone. However, summer paddy has a positive growth rate of area in all the Zones (Mandal, 2011). Like area, the share of production has also been the highest in the LBVZ at 28 percent of total production in the state while Hill Zone the least. However, the productivity of rice is the least in LBVZ; frequent occurrence of flood hampers performance. The effect of the critical interaction among the factors is also responsible for the inter-zonal disparities. The yield growth in all the rice types was high in BVZ with winter rice having the highest rate at 2.44 percent. But except summer rice, yield growth rate of rice was low in most of the zones. Barring a few exceptions, the growth performance of various zones in the last five decades has been identical to that of the
state. Until 1970s the rate of growth in the rice area was impressive in all the zones except in NBPZ where the growth rate started increasing after 1970s. During 1990s, the growth of area showed declining trends and in some cases crossed the horizontal axis (i.e., negative growth). On the contrary, the growth rate of yield showed improvement during and after 1980s. The decadal growth performance has been uneven and associated with substantial variability. The variability is much higher in case of summer crop as the crop is highly dependent on the input availability. Table 3.12, 3.13 and 3.14 presented the relative share of rice area by zone and season wise and area, production and yield zone wise respectively.
Table-3.12: Relative share of total rice area, production and yield with cropping intensityin different Agro- ecological zones in Assam during1999-2001:
Agro-ecological Zones
Rice area as % of total rice area of the state
Rice area in ha*
Rice production in tone*
Rice yield (kg/ha)
Cropping intensity (%)
LBVZ 36.67 900048
(77)
959017 (29.46)
1065 150
CBVZ 14.34 352037
(62)
554025
(17.02) 1573 126
UBVZ 16.45 403512
(67)
660398
(20.29) 1636 131
NBPZ 18.52 454487
(67)
521369
(16.02) 1147 163
BVZ 8.98 220294
(93)
386163
(11.86) 1752 142
HZ 5.04 123744
(70)
173860
(5.34) 1404 165
All 100 2454122
(67)
3254832
(100) 1326 146
Note: * % of total cropped area of the respective zones and % of total production.
Source: (i) Statistical Hand Book, Assam, (2001), (ii) Bhowmick et al., (2005).
Fig.3.8: Relative share of total rice area in different Agro-ecological zones in Assam during1999-2001 (%).
Table-3.13: Trends in acreage share of different paddy seasons in area under total paddy across the agro- ecological zones from 1991-92 to 2007-08: (in %)
Agro- ecologic al zones
Paddy 1991- 92
1993- 94
1995- 96
1997- 98
1999- 2000
2001- 02
2003- 04
2006- 07
2007- 08 LBVZ Autumn 34.49 34.81 35.48 35.25 31.01 25.34 23.71 25.66 22.10
Winter 60.56 60.52 58.35 57.15 56.00 57.27 59.04 53.62 58.01 Summer 4.95 4.67 6.17 7.60 12.99 17.39 17.25 20.73 19.89 CBVZ Autumn 23.96 24.00 24.69 25.92 17.01 18.28 15.81 12.41 8.65
Winter 57.27 58.31 56.03 55.54 56.04 52.16 56.32 50.84 62.16 Rice area as % of total rice area of the state
LBVZ CBVZ UBVZ NBPZ BVZ
Summer 18.77 17.68 19.28 18.55 26.96 29.56 27.87 36.75 29.19
UBVZ Autumn 13.34 10.67 9.51 6.98 8.35 8.00 5.49 3.98 3.58
Winter 86.56 89.26 89.90 90.72 88.96 90.88 93.48 94.74 95.29
Summer 0.10 0.07 0.60 2.30 2.70 1.12 1.03 1.28 1.13
NBPZ Autumn 26.98 28.66 27.33 26.67 23.79 26.02 23.50 23.74 19.93 Winter 72.32 69.82 69.52 68.83 67.64 63.68 66.65 66.46 68.68
Summer 0.69 1.52 3.15 4.49 8.57 10.31 9.86 9.80 11.39
BVZ Autumn 13.87 12.89 10.33 10.07 8.72 9.67 8.42 5.53 9.87
Winter 79.60 79.92 84.09 84.24 84.85 83.94 84.38 88.06 81.85
Summer 6.54 7.19 5.58 5.69 6.43 6.38 7.20 6.41 8.28
HZ Autumn - - - - - - - - 12.16
Winter - - - - - - - - 86.63
Summer - - - - - - - - 1.21
Assam Autumn 24.84 24.84 24.60 24.05 21.06 19.54 17.44 17.32 15.24 Winter 70.16 70.16 69.29 69.02 67.80 67.60 69.93 68.41 70.87 Summer 4.99 5.00 6.11 6.93 11.14 12.85 12.63 14.27 13.89 Source: Adopted from Basic Agricultural Statistics, Directorate of Agriculture, Government of Assam, Various Issues.
Table-3.14: Compound Annual Growth Rates of Area under paddy across zones in Assam, 1991-92 to 2007-08:
Zones/Crops Autumn Rice Winter Rice Summer Rice Total Rice Total Cropped Area
LBVZ -3.90 -1.05 10.96 -0.68 -0.48
CBVZ -7.24 -1.57 2.53 -1.61 -1.87
UBVZ -8.27 -0.48 18.01 -0.97 -1.18
NBPZ -1.80 -0.26 14.95 0.04 0.13
BVZ -3.08 0.22 1.68 -0.02 0.26
H Z -0.51 0.33 14.98 0.30 0.49
Source: Calculated by the author from data on area under different crops collected from (a) Directorate of Agriculture (Basic Agricultural Statistics); (b) Directorate of Economics and Statistics (Estimates of area, production and average yield of principal crops in Assam), Govt. of Assam, Different Issues.
Fig.3.9: CAGR of Area under paddy across zones in Assam, 1991-92 to 2007-08
Compound annual growth rate of total cropped area during the period 1991-92 to 2007- 08 was positive in BVZ, NBPZ and HZ while it was negative in LBVZ, CBVZ and UBVZ. Acreage growth rate of total paddy was negative except NBPZ and HZ. Autumn paddy has recorded a negative growth rate of area in all the zones whereas a similar pattern was observed in case of winter paddy in LBVZ, CBVZ, NBPZ and UBVZ.
Contrary to autumn and winter rice the acreage share of summer paddy has increased in all zones and growth of acreage share is the highest in UBVZ.
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
LBVZ CBVZ UBVZ NBPZ BVZ H Z
Total Cropped Area Total Rice Summer Rice Winter Rice Autumn Rice
3.5.1: Infrastructure and Rice Yield across Agro-ecological Zones:
The deceleration in some zones and stagnation in others was caused by the disparity in infrastructure, as reflected by the positive correlation between agricultural infrastructure index and rice yield. Top performing zones with higher level of infrastructure had higher average yield, contrary to low yields and low infrastructure in the rest of the zones. The value of Agricultural Infrastructure Index (AII) for the top three zones, viz., UBVZ, BVZ and HZ being 69, 59, and 51 respectively (against all India = 100) was associated with corresponding higher average productivity of 1.63 ton/ha, 1.60 ton/ha and 1.53 ton/ha respectively. While Lower Brahmaputra Valley Zone showed in table 3.15 the lowest productivity as the lowest value of agricultural infrastructure index (AII) being at 35.
Table-3.15: Relationship between agricultural infrastructure index (AII) and rice yield in Assam:
Agro-ecological Zones AII Yield (ton/ha)
UBVZ 69 1.63
BVZ 59 1.60
H Z 51 1.53
CBVZ 45 1.41
NBPZ 40 1.34
LBVZ 35 1.22
Source: NIRD, 2000, India Rural Development Report, Hyderabad.