International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2012 1 ISSN 2250-3153 www.ijsrp.org The Performance of India’s Food Grains Production: A Pre and Post Reform Assessment DR. MD. Firdos Ahmad, Shaukat Haseen Department of Economics, A.M.U. Aligarh E-mail: firdos_ahmad@yahoo.com Abstract- Climate change has emerged as an important determinant, particularly in the recent past. In India before economic reforms government was providing a lot of subsidies over the inputs that made the purchase of inputs affordable for the farmer which helps in fighting against the climate change. But after the economic reforms high rise in the prices of inputs of agricultural production has made it difficult for the farmers to purchase the inputs in right amount and vulnerability of agriculture to climate change has increased and it is expected that agriculture sector in India will be negatively affected. The growth rate in the food grains production and productivity has decelerated when India entered in the era of globalization. The growth rate production of food grains is 2.80 per cent per annum in pre reform period which declined to 1.98 per cent in post reform period. The situation is more worsen in case of growth rate of rice and wheat. The growth rate in productivity of food grains is slightly improved in post reform period over the pre reform period but in case of rice and wheat productivity, the result is quite opposite. In this paper we made a modest attempt to analysis this result by considering the change in growth rate of fertilizer consumption, change in cultivated area, change in irrigated area and change in climate conditions. Index Terms- Food grains, Production, Productivity, Fertilizer Consumption, Irrigated Area, Climate Chang I. INTRODUCTION he era of 1990s can be marked as a decade of complete departure from the restriction and controlled economic system when the government of India introduced a number of new economic policies in the form of structural adjustment and macro stabilization programme to integrate the national economy. Though, the Indian economy had got its way of rapid economic growth right from the beginning of the eighties, however, acceleration in the growth rate of GDP and per capita income have been realized only after 1991. This continuous and accelerated high growth of the Indian economy provides a large base for being the 4th largest economy of the world in terms of PPP (G.S. Bhulla, 2005). But the main problem with this high rate of growth of GDP and per capita income is that it has been as explicit growth of the economy. The growth performance of the Indian agriculture has decelerated significantly after the opening up of the economy. ―Since agriculture continues to be the largest sector of the economy in terms of employment, the deceleration of growth of this sector has serious implications for the living standard of agricultural workers both farmers and agricultural laborers‖ [Ibid] The growth rate of agriculture production is generally judged by the performance of food grains and non-food grains production. From these both items of agriculture production of food grain is more significant due to two reasons. Firstly, it provides the base for subsistence by supplying basic food items and secondly, it is the only group of agricultural produce where ―Green Revolution‖ was introduced firstly and more successfully. Its importance has also increased due to the inception of World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and therefore in the present study we shall concentrate our self over the production. At the time of independence agriculture occupied the most dominant place in the Indian economy by providing livelihood to about 70 percent of population and contributing about 48.6 percent of GDP (Sharma, P.N., 2005). After the introduction of Green Revolution, the scene has completely changed about the Indian agriculture has transformed from food shortage to self reliance. This has become possible because of technological changes as well as the Government initiatives in form of various programme. The new method of agricultural practice brought a drastic change in the productivity and production. More and more agricultural land are brought under cultivation with the help of improved irrigation facilities (with the help of assured means of irrigation) cheaply available chemical fertilizers and supply of high yield varieties of seeds in the market. Farm mechanization has also shortened the period of ploughing, sowing and harvesting process of agriculture. The implementation of land reform has further added a new dimension in Indian agriculture. Therefore the successful implementation of Green Revolution and Land Reform not only increases the productivity but also increases the area under cultivation that paved the way for a higher growth of the agricultural sector. With the passage of time as the fruits of green Revolution and land reform reaped, the Indian agriculture moved from food shortage to self sufficiency and from self sufficiency to surplus agricultural produce. The period of 1980s has witnessed a higher increment in food grain population in comparison to increase in the population that increases the supply of food grains in the economy over the demand (Yadav Krishna Nand, 2005). Consequently the items of food grains failed in attracting the appropriate prices in the market and therefore India was in a great need of new market for the food grains. The opening up of the economy in 1991 and the establishment of WTO in 1995 once again changed the life of Indian farmers. On the other hand T