26 SOC EIAL SCIENTIST TABLE I r
COEFFICIENTS OF CORREI .A iTION BETWEEN AREA UNDER WHEAT AT
UNDER EACH OF ITS COMPETE ?G CROPS IN DIFFERENT DISTRICTS OF WESF BENGAL (1963-64 to 1974-75;
Coefficient of Correlation between Area under
Wheat meat Wheat Wheat
District and and and, and
potato gram mustard sugar cane
1 2 3 4 5
Burdwan 0.2954 0.8224* 0.2974 0.5606
Birbhum 0.3156 -0.1160 0.7173* -0.1244
Bankura 0.6254** -0.7324* 0.7974* -0.4582
Midnapore 0.4741 -0.5698 -0.3129 0.8387*
Howrah 0.3586 -0.5051 0.4686 0.7259*
Hooghly -0.3826 -0.8103* 0.7905* -0.2100
24-Parganas -0.0098 -0 7090* 0.2187 -0.6885**
Nadia -0.2116 -0.4420 0.0563 0.1251
Murshidabad 0.2147 -0 7614* 0.3900 -0.0440
West Dinajpur 0.4712 0.3753 -0.6939** 0.2226
Malda 0.0486 -0.0178 0.1386 -0.7484*
Jalpaiguri -0.3104 -- 0.1568 -0.1857
Darjeeling 0.0029 — -0.0741 -0.0329
Coochbehar 0.2061 -0.6392** 0.0167 0.2177
Purulia 0 1895 0.6731** 0.1512 0.8943*
West Bengal 0.0282 -0.6874** 0.1514 -0.1797
* Significant at 1 percent probability level. ** Significant at 5 percent probability level.transfer from sugarcane to wheat is also found to be significant in the 24-Parganas and Malda districts. In West Dinajpur, transfer of area from mustard to wheat is indicated. Expansion of wheat area in ether districts, however, cannot be explained in terms of acreage shift from any of its competing crops. Taking West Bengal as a whole, the increase in wheat area can partly be attributed to the contraction of area under gram. Further, the expansion of area under wheat cannot be explained fully in terms of contraction of area under any of its competing crops. This implies that extension of area under wheat has taken place mainly due to extension of sown area. The relative price of a crop plays an important role not only in the matter of allocation of land to a particular crop but also in the allocation of new land among the competing crops. It would therefore be interesting to find whether the recent expansion in wheat area can be explained in terms of the movement of its relative price. The use of relative prices in the present context raises implicitly another question on the pertinent prices of wheat and its competing crops the variation of which positively correlates with the area under wheat. Since most of the agricultural pro-