Economic Analysis of Cabbage Cultivation in Punjab

Considering cabbage as an important vegetable crop in Punjab, this paper has studied the income, employment, marketing margins and price spread of cabbage by collecting data from 100 farmers in the Ludhiana district. The study has found that the total variable cost/ha incurred in growing cabbage was 42874 and the minimum variable cost was on small farms. The labour has emerged to be an important variable which shared about 42 per cent of the total variable cost incurred on this crop. The maximum expenses were incurred ( 17912) on hired labour. The hired labour contributed 76 per cent and family labour 24 per cent to growing cabbage. The return over variable cost was 45519/ha and it was maximum on large farms due to prevalence of economies of scale. It has been observed that hired labour and plant protection measures positively and significantly affected the cabbage yield. The marketing of cabbage has been studied by four supply chains.