Tractorisation and Agricultural Development in India

Abstract

Technological innovations have had profound effect on agricultural sector in the post-Green Revolution period in India. With the inception of Green Revolution, mechanisation process, especially the application of tractor in agriculture sector had intensified. However, in 2000s, the pattern of mechanization has diversified slightly from the intensive tractorisation to other implements like, irrigation, fertilizer, harvester, energy and others. Using a time series data on tractorisation and agriculture GDP for 43 years, co-integration regression method was employed to understand short run equilibrium between the variables. Further, the Error Correction Model (ECM) result showed that elasticities of mechanization were 10.4 percent and 0.52 percent for the long-run and the short-run respectively. It implies that a positive impact of mechanization on agriculture GDP was found both in the short run and long-run.