Statistical evaluation of agricultural development in Punjab-A factor analytic approach

Agricultural development is not pre-determined but it is a continuous process of improvement of crop and livestock production. Punjab is predominantly rural and agrarian state. About 62.51 percent population of the state comes from rural areas. Rural development depends on progress and growth of agriculture. In the present study an attempt has been made to identify the factors responsible for agricultural development in Punjab and also regional disparities associated with these factors. It is based on secondary data with districts as a primary unit, by using nineteen indicators related to agriculture collected from different reliable sources during the period 2012?13. The factor analysis approach has been used to extract factors affecting the agricultural development and then evaluated rotated factor scores for each district to identify the performance of districts in context to these factors. The study revealed that four factors namely land resources, farm input and production, productivity, and diversification were adequate to explain 73.5 percent of the variation among the indicators related to agricultural development.