Volume-II, Issue-IV May 2016 39 International Research Journal of Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJIMS) A Peer-Reviewed Monthly Research Journal ISSN: 2394-7969 (Online), ISSN: 2394-7950 (Print) Volume-II, Issue-IV, May 2016, Page No. 39-46 Published by: Scholar Publications, Karimganj, Assam, India, 788711 Website: http://www.irjims.com Growth and instability of rice production in Assam Nijan Chandra Pegu Assistant Professor, Dept. of Economics, B. Borooah College, Guwahati, Assam, India Dr. Chandan Hazarika Professor, Assam Agriculture University, Jorhat, Assam, India Abstract In India, looking at the different component of the rural economy, agriculture remains the mainstay of the rural sector. Agriculture in Assam is popularly known as rice culture, because it is dominated by rice as the most important cereal crop in terms of area, production and productivity. It played a leading role in improving food security in the state of Assam. Rice is consumed by about 90 percent of the state population and is grown over an area of 26.46 lakh hectares occupying around 74.25 percent of the cropped area. In Assam, agriculture largely depends on vagaries of nature and the instability in rice production. Agriculture instability has remained the subject of intense debate in the agricultural economics literature in India. While the need for increasing agricultural production or growth is obvious, the increasing in instability in agricultural production is considered adverse for several reasons. It raises the risk involve in farm productions and affects farmers income and decisions to adopt high paying technologies and make investments in farming. Instability in production affects the consumers and the price stability, and it increases variability of low-income households to market. This paper tries to find out the growth and instability of different rice and identify the sources of instability of production and productivity of rice in Assam. For these purpose different tools of analysis has been used. From the analysis of growth and instability in area, production and productivity, it was found that there existed a considerable variation in the production of different types of rice in the state. Key Words: Agriculture, Rice, area, Production, Productivity, growth, instability. In India, looking at the different component of the rural economy, agriculture remains the mainstay of the rural sector. The compound growth rate in agricultural production has been 2.7 percent per annum since independence. Since the first green revolution in the 1960s the food grain production has increased significantly from 82 million tons in 1960-61 to 129 million tons in 1980- 81 and 233 million tons in 2008-2009 and further increased 252.68 million tones. However, the share of agriculture in the country GDP has declined from 48.7 in 1950 to 24.4 percent in 1996-97 and 18.7 percent in 2007 further down 16.1 percent in 2014-15. Further, our agriculture productivity continues to be low at 1.7 tones/ha as against the world’s average of 2.6 tones/ha, leave alone the worlds best of 4 to 5 tones/ha. Rice is the main constituent of India’s agricultural sector, which occupies 23 percent of the world’s rice area and contributes approximately 42 percent of India’s food grain production and placed 2 nd largest production. As a result of improved technology, the