Enhancing Farmers’ Income in Agrarianly Distressed Marathwada: Multi-criteria Decision Making in Farm Planning

This study has developed optimum farm plans based on a combination of crop and dairy enterprises subject to limited availability of farm resources. The primary data pertaining to crop and dairy enterprises was collected from 100 dairy farm households in Latur district of Marathwada. It was found that marginal and small farmers have the highest aspiration level than other farming categories in goals such as net return and total production. Optimum farm plan for landless dairy households includes replacement of indigenous cow by cross-bred cows which can enhance net return from existing 36, 211 to 51, 118 and total production from 45 quintals to 70 quintals per annum. The farm plan for marginal and small farmers can increase income to 1, 30, 000 from the existing 64, 174. Suggested combination of farm resources for medium and large farmers would enhance the income to 3, 20, 000 and 4, 50, 000 from the existing 1, 80, 156 and 2, 78, 737 respectively. The optimum farm plans for all the farming categories suggest shifting the area under soybean and wheat to tur and gram and inclusion of high productive milch animal species in place of low productive indigenous cattle. The suggested optimum plan can have a positive impact on the returns in the presence of proper institutional arrangements.