Abstract

Testing a general premise regarding the emergence of regional disparities in agricultural labour productivity is done by considering agro-ecological zones of the Brahmaputra valley as stable regional frame. Collecting sub-division wise statistics of agricultural attributes such as crop area, crop yield, crop production prices and labour intensity from the Office of Agriculture, Government of Assam, Guwahati, the values of labour productivity are calculated for two points of time (the early as well as late 1990s) and the inter and intra zone variations in the labour productivity are interpreted. It is found that the scenario of low level of labour productivity with its higher inter zone variations which were reduced marginally during the 1990s is prevalent in the areas of lower and middle Brahmaputra valley. On the other hand, the scenario of higher productivity with the fast increase in its high degree of inter as well as intra zone differences is observed in the areas of its Central Brahmaputra valley and Upper Southern plains. The inter zone variations in labour productivity in the zones situated in the lower parts of valley were recorded moderately low in the early 1990s with its marginal decrease during the 1990s as increasing pressure of agricultural work force mounts in these zones.