Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

The change in precipitation pattern and temperature directly and indirectly affect the weather dependent agriculture sector. So, this study assessed the effect of rainfall and temperature variability on the mean and variance of rice yield in Meghalaya by using Just & Pope model. The state received fairly good amount of rainfall during rice growing season but the minimum and maximum temperatures have increased during 1975-2007. Average monsoon maximum temperature has positive and significant effect on the mean yield of kharif rice. The significant effect of the squared term of monsoon minimum temperature, and the interaction term of monsoon minimum and monsoon maximum temperature implies their non-linear effect on the mean yield of kharif rice. The variance function reveals that the climatic parameters along with time trend are risk decreasing factors but only time trend is statistically significant.