Yield Gap Analysis through OFT Under RKVY in the Northern Hill Region of Chhattisgarh

The challenges for agriculture in the coming decades will be to meet the world's increasing demand for food in a sustainable manner. India has been targeting a growth rate of more than 4% in agriculture, but the actual achievement has been much below the target. Concerned by the slow growth in the agriculture and allied sectors, the National Development Council resolved that a special additional central assistance scheme (Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, RKVY) be launched in May 2007. In case of wheat crop, the Korea district produced only 17110 tonnes of wheat grains from 14.5 thousand ha area of land, with a productivity of 11.80 qha⁻¹ against the State productivity of 12.10 qha⁻¹. Taking into account the above points, a study was carried out in the district Korea belonging to the northern hill region of Chhattisgarh by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Korea, during the Rabi season of 2010–11. The cultivar HD-2932 of wheat crop, suitable for late-sown semi-irrigated conditions, was selected for the investigation. Suitable sites of 0.40 ha area each were selected at 12 locations of the district based on the information collected at personal visits and group meetings to test the sample of wheat crop under the RKVY programme. The data on output were recorded from both demonstrated as well as control plots and, finally, the extension gap, technology gap and technology index along with the benefit-cost ratio were computed. The variety HD-2932 performed better (average yield 19.42 qha⁻¹) compared with the control (average yield 13.15 qha⁻¹) at all the locations. The extension gap was found to be 3.89–9.32 qha⁻¹ and the technology gap varied between 19.28 and 22.31 qha⁻¹ at all the locations. The technology index (48.20–55.78) reveals that its lower value is also feasible rather than the higher value.