Abstract

The principal focus of this study was to measure the influence of price and time elements on the area under paddy in Coimbatore district over a period of 21 years from 1940-41 to 1960-'61 and to empirically verify the hypothesis that peasants in less developed countries do not generally respond or respond very little or negatively to price movements. Similar studies were undertaken by Rajkrishna (1963) for the Punjab region. Coimbatore district was chosen for the study on account of the competing claims of commercial crops like Sugarcane and Cotton over food crops like paddy and millets due to industrialisation of the district. Moreover, since agriculture is a location bound industry the real alternatives faced by the farmers can be formulated and the relevant variables defined more appro- priately for a region than for an aggregate of heterogeneous regions.

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