Factor productivity and economic profitability of paddy cultivation in Chhattisgarh state: A micro level analysis

The study on the factor productivity and economic profitability of paddy cultivation in the Chhattisgarh state has indicated that the area under crop, human labour and seed affect significantly the gross return of farm, while bullock and tractor power as well as plant protection chemicals affect nonsignificantly. The manures and fertilizers decrease gross return of farm significantly. The ratio of marginal value product (MVP) to factor cost (FC) has portrayed the excessive use of manure and fertilizer in the study area. It has been observed that the gross returns can be increased by using more human labour, seed and plant protection chenmicals, keeping other inputs at their respective geometric mean level of use. Since, the MVP-FC ratio for seed has been found to be much higher, it implies that using better quality of seed would give much higher return to rice farmers. The large farmers have been able to get the highest return of Rs 1.53 per rupee of investment, followed by medium (Rs 1.51) and small (Rs 1.38) farmers. The study has concluded that paddy is more profitable for medium and large farms than small farms. The farmers in the study area should reduce the use of manure and fertilizers. Cateogry-wise analysis has depicted that there is the need of reduction in the cost on seed in small farms, bullock and tractor in medium farms and bullock and tractor in medium farms and bullock and tractor as well as plant protection chemicals on large farms. Overall, using additional unit of area under crop, human labour, bullock and tractor power, seed and plant protection chemicals could increase the gross return from paddy in the study area. This would help increase not only the natioal pool of paddy but also the farm income of paddy producers considerably in the sate of Chhattisgarh.