POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AGRICULTURE 5 increase has come in rice production which has grown at a rate of 4.1 per cent per annum between 1960-61 and 1970-71 and which accounts for more than one-third of the value of the total agricultural production in the State. The percentage of rice production to total cereal production has gradually increased, from 63 per cent in 1950-51 to 77 percent in 1970-71. While the high yielding varieties such as ADT-27, Co 25, IR-8 and the one affectionately called karuna and their derivatives have certainly made a difference in some selected areas, notably Thanjavur, on the whole the High Yielding Variety Programme (HYVP) has not been marked by sustained growth in agriculture. Millet crops have remained fairly stagnant over the period 1950-51 to 1970-71, with the millet crop with the highest growth rate, cumbu, showing an annual average compound growth rate of only 0.7 per cent over the period. The increase in the production of pulses, a meagre 0.7 per cent per annum between 1960-61 and 1970-71, has been solely because of an increase in the area under cultivation and even the starry-eyed predictions of the members of the Task Force on Agriculture envisage an 8.71 lakh tonne deficit at the end of the Perspective Plan period. The tendency of the "Green Revolution" to bypass oilseed production has been particularly marked in Tamil Nadu, where oilseed output, 8.17 lakh tonnes in 1950-51 and 11.23 lakh tonnes in 1960-61, sank to 9.60 lakh tonnes in 1970-71. Productivity, which had fallen below the 1950-51 level in 1966-67, had not caught up with the pre-Plan figure in 1969-70. Tamil Nadu produces 7.9 per cent of India's total cotton output (with 50 per cent of the yarn produced in the State delivered to other states or exported). The area under cotton crawled upwards, from 2.99 lakh hectares in 1950-51 to 4.06 lakh hectares in 1959-60. From 1964-65 to 1969-70, the annual average area under cotton sank to 3.63 lakh hectares, a figure which fell to 3.30 lakh hectares in 1970-71. With a production that official sources claim is 3 lakh tonnes per annum, Tamil Nadu accounts for one-twelfth of the sugar production in India. The recovery rate of cane sugar, however, is only 7.87 per cent in Tamil Nadu, compared with 9.73 per cent in Karnataka and 10.72 per cent in Maharashtra. Consequently, despite the increase in the crushing capacity in some mills, the output of sugar has not shown any significant increase over the past six years. The quantity of cane crushed by 14 mills in 1965-66 was 26.88 lakh tonnes, producing 2.24 lakh tonnes of sugar with an average recovery of 8.46 per cent. During the year 1968-69, 15 sugar mills handled 41.59 lakh tonnes, producing only 3.31 lakh tonnes of sugar with a recovery of 7.95 per cent. During the period 1968-69 to 1971, the yield of cane in tonnes per hectare fell from 80.68 to 74.38, and the quantity of cane crushed fell from 41.69 lakh tonnes to 33.25 lakh tonnes. The growth rates of area, production and productivity of selected crops are shown in the following table :