Impact of laser land levelling on wheat and paddy production in north-eastern Indo-Gangetic plains of India

The paper has compared the economics of wheat as well as paddy production in North- Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains of Bihar under laser land levelling and conventional methods and assessed the contribution of technology and inputs to the increased productivity due to laser land levelling (LLL). The net income has been found higher in LLL method, mainly due to incremental gain in productivity compared to that in conventional method. The study has observed that LLL technology has potential to provide additional income to farmers and help in conservation of scarce resources. The decomposition of productivity revealed 17 per cent and 47 per cent of the difference in productivity of wheat and paddy, respectively due to LLL and the rest due to changes in input use. In all, about Rs.20055 of net incremental benefit was derived from per LLL operation. Despite several economic and environmental advantages, adoption of LLL technology has been limited and one major constraint identified as the small size of land holding followed by lack of technical knowledge. The study has suggested that LLL technology should be disseminated on a wider scale with the help of co-operative farming and better technical as well as extension support to the farmers.