Is the Productivity Impact of the Green Revolution in Rice Vanishing?

Serious concerns have been raised recently about the long-run sustainability of the productivity effects of green revolution technologies in the light of the decelerating trend in the yield growth of rice since the mid-1980s under the irrigated ecosystem. However, it is also important to recognise that the changes in physical yield are not true measures of productivity from an efficiency perspective. The paper addresses the crucial issue of total factor productivity, which is a true measure of the economic efficiency of any technological impact. Results suggest that various modern technologies (such as modern varieties) adopted by the farmers over the period have continued to make a considerable impact on rice productivity growth - as reflected in the increasing trend of TFP growth. However, the rate of increase in TFP growth has started to decelerate under the irrigated ecosystem during the late GR period. This implies that the "level" of productivity impact of the successive generations of modern technologies has apparently been going down. A plateau or deceleration in TFP growth in the progressive areas is not unusual because TFP levels cannot be expected to increase at the same rate during the late GR period as it was during the early GR period.