Analysis of Agricultural and Climatic trends in Indian Districts and finding the contributing factors in recent Indian Agricultural Outputs

Agriculture, in general, has a long production cycle and is affected by many endogenous and exogenous uncertainty factors. Changes in rainfall patterns, maximum or minimum temperature, types and amounts of fertilizer input, timing, availability of irrigation water, and soil quality can drastically change the agricultural yield. In developing countries such as India, where more than half of countries population is engaged in agriculture, and the whims of nature may affect the agricultural output, it is essential to check how the entire agricultural system reacts to the changes in climatic parameters and anthropogenic practices. This study analyses agricultural trends in four primary staple crops, trends in climatic parameters, and anthropogenic inputs in Indian districts. Significant trends were detected and quantified using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) test, modified MK test, and Theil-Sen estimator at a 5% significance level. Spearman’s correlation test is used to determine the contributing factors to the changes in agricultural yield. Rice, Wheat, Pearl Millet, and Maize yields have shown significant increasing trends in a large number of the districts. Despite decreases in the gross cropped area in the majority of the districts, the trends in production are mostly positive. According to Spearman’s Rho correlation test, the increase in fertilizer consumption in most districts and the increase in crop-wise irrigated land in many districts are the significant reasons for the increase in yields. The rainfall did not change much compared to maximum and minimum temperatures at both the annual and seasonal levels. Although there were significant climatic changes in the last three decades, the correlation with agricultural yield is mostly insignificant.