India's population almost trebled from 455 million in 1961 to 1.17 billion in 2007, at an annual average growth rate of 2.1%. In spite of a comparable increase of total cereals production, production per capita could not change significantly without major productivity improvements. Such improvements did not happen, notwithstanding sizeable yield increases from 947 kilogram/hectare in 1961 to 2,619 in 2007, at an annual average rate of 2.2%, above the world equivalent rate of 2% but well below China's rate of 3.3%. Inevitably India's production per person could only grow modestly. It went from 192 kg per person in 1961 to 223 kg in 2007, at an annual average rate of 0.3%. This can hardly satisfy the country's cereals requirements current and for the years to come.
[Primary Y-axis: production per person in kilograms, and yield in kilogram/hectare. Secondary Y-axis: population in millions. Dots represent actual data, for which the corresponding regression lines are provided in the same colour.]

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Sources: see FAOSTAT for cereals production data, and United Nations Statistics Division for population data.

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