107 Around the world cereals have been considered as the principal component of human diet among the food crops, for thousands of years. They constitute rice, wheat, maize and to lesser extent jowar and millets. More than 50% of world daily caloric intake is derived from cereal grain consumption directly. Today cereal grains are the single most important source of calories in the world to a majority of the population. Green revolution in India had a signifcant change in cereal production over the period of 1950-51 to 1977- 78; the fgure of 125 million tonnes during 1978 refects sharp contrast to the production of 1950’s standing out to be just little over 55 million tonnes (Kabra and Ittyerah 2009). Since then cereal production in India showed an increasing trend with 2.3% in 1970’s to 2.8% in 1990’s and then slowed down to 2.02%, even the yield growth refected the same trend, but the superior cereals rice and wheat as a percentage of total cereal production increased from 20% during 1970’s to 41% per year during the same period (Singh 2006). Thus the present study was undertaken considering rice, wheat and maize (corn) emerging out to be the three most important cereals in the world including India, contributing more than half of calorie intake of all human beings all over the globe. Other studies also reveal that the total cereal requirement of India by 2020 will be between 290 and 350 million tonnes depending on income growth (Bhalla et al. 1999, Kumar et al. 2004), which shows that the demand for rice and wheat is expected to increase to 122 and 103 million tonnes respectively, by 2020 assuming a medium income growth (Kumar et al. 2004). This will have to be produced from the same or even shrinking land resource. Thus, by 2020 the average yields of rice and wheat need to be increased signifcantly, under this background the paper seeks to examine the trends in area, production, productivity of rice, wheat and maize along with instability in the growth trends for major producing states of India. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was largely based on secondary data for a period of 22 years from 1990-91 to 2012-13. Area, production and productivity of rice, wheat and maize for major states were obtained from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Government of India, New Delhi. The study was divided in to two periods from 1990-2000 (period I) and 2001-2013 (period II) to make comparisons across the period and draw conclusions. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 87 (10): 1371–6, October 2017/Article Scenario of changing dynamics in production and productivity of major cereals in India ANKHILA R HANDRAL 1 , ALKA SINGH 2 , D R SINGH 3 , A SURESH 4 and G K JHA 5 ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012 Received: 15 March 2017; Accepted: 14 June 2017 ABSTRACT Cereals occupy prime position in diet composition of all human beings, with rice, wheat and maize being the major staple cereals with more than 70% share among all the food grains. With the inception of green revolution, India from being a food defcit and net importer of food grains not only became self reliant but also one of the major exporters of food grains with the adoption of modern wheat and rice varieties. Thus the present study was undertaken to analyze the trends in area, production and productivity of rice, wheat and maize for the period 1990-91 to 2012- 13 obtaining data from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, New Delhi. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and coeffcient of variation were also used to see the growth patterns and instability in the production and productivity of these cereals overtime. The results showed that in both rice and wheat instability increased in area, production and productivity but most of the states registered an increasing growth trends during the period. Notably Maize showed increase in area, yield and production since 2000 due to its increasing demand for industrial usage and had signifcant growth in the decade due to its growing commercial value with emergence of promising new hybrids. The study points out to the signifcant intervention of policy to help maintain stability in case of major cereals of India’s food security. Key words: Coeffcient of variation, Compound annual growth rate (CAGR), Instability, Maize, Rabi, Rice, Triennium ending (TE), Wheat 1 Ph D scholar (e mail: ankhila.ankhe@gmail.com), 2 (e mail: alkasingh@iari.res.in), 3 (e mail: drsingh_1960@yahoo.com), 4 (e mail: suresha@iari.res.in), 5 (e mail: gkjha@iari.res.in), Division of Agricultural Economics. https://doi.org/10.56093/ijas.v87i10.75025