Agriculture in India is subject to variety of risks arising from rainfall aberrations, temperature fluctuations, hailstorms, cyclones, floods and climate change. These risks are exacerbated by price fluctuation, weak rural infrastructure, imperfect markets and lack of financial services including limited span and design of risk mitigation instruments such as credit and insurance.

Rice and wheat are the two most important staple crops, which play a critical role in food security in India. The paper attempts to analyze the changing pattern of foodgrain production system and derive certain policy interventions in view of its relative importance in achieving avowed growth rates envisaged in the XI th five year plan.