Coconut (Cocos nucifera) is extensively cultivated and used as a staple ingredient in Indian cuisines, especially in the South Indian cuisines. In India, other than edible purposes, coconut is widely used in religious practices and, it is considered as symbol of prosperity. Despite these facts, several upturns and downturns occurring in the growth trends of coconut in recent periods irrespective of geographical differences. This study attempts to decipher the growth trends in the area, the production and yield of coconut in major coconut producing states in India from 2000–2001 to 2017–2018. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are the states in India where coconut palms are extensively cultivated and produced in large quantities. These states together contribute to approximately 84 per cent of the total area for cultivation of coconut and account for over 87 per cent of total production in the country. We analyse the growth trends in coconut cultivation using appropriate growth equations to estimate the growth rates and instabilities in growth trends. Besides, we use decomposition analysis to find the role of area, price, yield and crop mix effects on coconut production. The results reveal that Karnataka secured high growth in coconut production and its productivity and recorded better acceleration but fluctuated heavily between the phases of years under investigation. It shows that the price effect and yield effect play a crucial role in the total change of coconut production among the selected states. Based on the results, we recommend the local governments and other dedicated authorities to ensure that coconut growers have better access to modern technology, quality inputs, marketing and credit facilities following local necessity. Eventually, these measures can attract and encourage many new farmers into coconut cultivation and thereby achieving better advances in coconut farming.

This study examines the structure of agriculture productivity and crop diversification across different zones in Punjab, India during 1966–1967 to 2017–2018. The composite entropy index shows that almost all zones are specialised in few crops but some of them are relatively less or some are more. Hence, we found zones are experiencing a lateral movement toward crop specialisation and crop diversification is not happening. Further, results reveals that accessibility of market and roadhave a positive influenced the level of crop diversification are accessibility of market, roads have found a positive influenced on crop diversification. Whereas more use of fertiliser, intensity of irrigation and rainfall have leads to concentration rather than crop diversification. Similarly, study also analysed the factors that are responsible of variation in productivity by regional factors such as better road, fertiliser, urbanisation, literacy and cropping intensity. As the analysis indicates that there is need to emphasise on agro-climatic regional preparation by clearly identifying the existing resource endowments and constraints of the agro-climatically homogeneous regions. JEL: C23,Q10, Q19