Transition in agriculture: Empirical indicators and results (evidence from Punjab, India)

In this paper, the author studies the impact of agricultural transition on certain well‐known empirical relationships that have, so far, been identified with backward agriculture. The study tests the relation between farm size and productivity to see if the inverse relation breaks down with the advent of new technology. Farm size is also related to several other variables in an analysis of agricultural transformation. Using recent data the results indicate that: the historically more advanced regions exhibit a positive relation between farm size and productivity; in regions which have been recently transformed the relation is neither significantly negative nor positive, and in the relatively backward areas the inverse relation still prevails. Corresponding changes in other variables also tend to reflect the nature and extent of transition in agriculture.