A note on the estimation methods of crop production at the block level

Abstract

This paper presents a method of estimation of crop-production statistics at smaller geographical levels like a community development block (generally referred to as a block) to make area-specific plans for agricultural development programmes in India. Using available district-level data on crop yield from crop-cutting experiments and data on auxiliary variables from various administrative sources, a suitable regression model is fitted. The fitted model is then used to predict the crop production at the block level. Some scaled estimators are also developed using predicted estimates. An empirical study is also carried out to judge the merits of the proposed estimators.

Keywords:

• crop production
• community development block
• small area statistics
• crop-cutting experiments
• mean square error

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the referees and Editor of JAS for their valuable suggestions which have improved the earlier version of the paper.