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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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Subject: Agricultural Economics × Author: Kumari, Priyanka × End date: 2020 × Start date: 2010 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Growth and instability of food grain production in Bihar: regional analysis
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, samastipur, 2019) Kumari, Priyanka; Singh, Krishna Murari
    Agriculture is considered as backbone of the economy of Bihar. Agriculture contributed about 22 percent to the state GDP during 2010-14. The state has attained self sufficiency in food grains production, even though the productivity of various farm produces are much below the corresponding national average. Inspite of rich fertile soils and abundance of ground water the net sown area is shrinking on account of increasing population pressure and climatic variability. The agricultural production can further be enhanced through raising cropping intensity, changing cropping pattern, genetic improvement in crop varieties, mechanized cultivation practices and making availability of improved post harvest technology etc. Analysis of cropping pattern indicated that cereal crops like; paddy, wheat and maize were dominating crops in Bihar. Rice and wheat together contributed more than 60 per cent in gross cropped area. Paddy area declined but wheat area showed increasing trend for entire period of study, but, area of pulses declined in Bihar and all agro- climatic zones, except in zone II which exhibited fluctuating trend. Rapeseed & mustard is no doubt an important crop but growth in area reflected mixed trend in all zones and the state, whereas, area share of sugarcane and potato showed increasing trend. Area has increased only in case of wheat and maize, while the area under other crops like paddy, gram, red gram, lentil, green gram and rapeseed & mustard declined over both the referenced points of time i.e., 2005 over 1995 and 2016 over 2005 in Bihar. However, paddy, wheat and maize production observed increasing trend during both the referenced points. Among pulse crops, only lentil registered increase in production in the state. Productivity of all the crops under investigation registered positive trend at both the referenced points of time, only rapeseed & mustard observed declining trend in first point of reference. In zone I, it was found that wheat, gram, lentil and rapeseed & mustard registered increase in area under crops in the first decade. Production scenario indicated that only cereal crops like paddy, wheat and maize showed positive variation with respect to the reference period of time in zone II. In zone IIIA, the results indicated that decadal change in area of almost all the crops under investigation was observed negative in the first decade. In case of production and productivity of all the crops except gram (-23.08%) and red gram (-33.21%) in production and red gram (-30.36%) in productivity registered positive changes in production and productivity. In zone III B, area under wheat registered positive (10.61%). Production and productivity of most of the crops under study were also found positive except for some pulse crops. Compound growth rate of area of paddy observed negative for overall period in the state and for different zones except zone II. But in case of wheat, area was found positive in zone I, zone IIIB and the state for overall period. In case of maize, area during overall period was positive in zone II, zone IIIB and for the state as a whole. Growth rate of area in major pulse crops and oilseed crops mostly declined during different periods in all the zones and the state. Production and productivity of major cereal crops and lentil in pulses group was found positive, except it was negative in zone II and zone-IIIB for period II & IIIB. For overall period in all the zones and the state production of lentil was positive except in zone-II. Red gram, Gram and Green gram showed mixed trend. Instability in area of cereals i.e., paddy and wheat and maize was comparatively low during overall period in the state, while production and productivity of these crops were found more unstable as compared to area. Besides several other factors, total production of crop output is determined mainly by yield, area and their interaction effect. In the state, yield effect was positive during all study periods except period-I in paddy. Area effect exerted negative effects on production of paddy in the state. In zone wise analysis, area effects for most of the periods were computed negative and interaction effects were observed negative in all zones for most of the periods under study. In wheat, yield effect for all the periods in the state and in all the zones was found positive. Similar trend was found in case of area effect except in period-III for zone-II. Interaction effects reflected mixed scenario. In maize crop, yield effect, area effect and interaction effect were found positive for all the periods under investigation in zone II and Bihar. Change in production in red gram and gram was mainly due to area effect. But in lentil, production was influenced by yield effect. In green gram, area effect and yield effect were assessed fluctuating during the period of investigation. For most of the periods in different zones, area and interaction effect have positive influence on augmenting the production of rapeseed and mustard in the state. A detail analysis on components of growth performance was carried out. In paddy and wheat crops, irrigated area and consumption of fertilizer were found significantly positive components in augmenting production of these crops in the state but only irrigated area emerged as an important factor in maize. In case of pulse crops total area was common factor of the production of respective crop which was positively significant in red gram, gram and green gram. Rainfall affected adversely to production of lentil. Total area of the crop, irrigated area and fertilizer consumption played positive and significant role in production of rapeseed & mustard. Yield gap analysis was carried to know the actual differences in demonstration yield and average yield of farmer‟s field in the state and its agro-climatic zones. In case of paddy, yield gap was comparatively higher in zone IIIA (28.19%) and it was 18.43 % in the state as whole. Yield gap in wheat was assessed comparatively high, 28.98% in zone-IIIA and it was computed to be 26.42 % for the state. Yield gap in maize was estimated to be 32.49% in the state and highest yield gap was found in zone-I and lowest in zone-IIIB. The yield gap was recorded comparatively low in case of lentil (23.01 %) and high in case of green gram (49.39 %) followed by red gram (36.33 %) and in gram (24.38%). In case of rapeseed and mustard, mean yield gap was recorded 28.88% for the state. Among the zones, zone IIIB recorded the highest yield gap of 32 % and lowest 27.85% in zone II. The study suggests that there is need for research and innovation at the state level to embrace and leverage new technologies. Offering credit support to the individual farmer and at cluster levels is highly desirable to ensure the adoption of technology and diversification. There is a need to emphasize on National Agriculture Market (eNAM) which is a digital-India electronic trading portal which helps to get knowledge about the market of agricultural commodities. However, arrangement should also be made to improve the farmers‟ access to eNAM portal. On the other side, Bihar‟s agriculture sector is also facing the wrath of natural calamities, particularly flood in north Bihar and drought in south Bihar. Therefore, through the use of appropriate crop technology and extending crop insurance for all farmers would help to reduce risk of climatic variation.