Economic Affairs

The present study was undertaken with a view to assess the impact of soil health card to identify the factors affect on fertilizer consumption and fertilizer use efficiency in sugarcane and kharif paddy crops in South Gujarat region of Gujarat State. The multistage random sampling technique comprised of 224 farmers was taken for the study. The production function analysis employed for determinants of fertilizer use indicated that annual total income of farmers, short term credit, one year lagged price and educational level were found the major influencing factors for determining fertilizers consumption in sugarcane and kharif paddy in general, for with and without Soil Health Card farmers. The production function analysis employed for fertilizer use efficiency indicated that there existed a variation in the production elasticities of resource inputs between the crops and groups of farmers under study. In general, area under the crop, human labours, phosphorus and other working capital were the important resource variables positively and significantly influencing the crop output in general for with and without Soil Health Card farmers. The nitrogen and manure showed the negative and significant effect on crops output when farmers used these resources excessively.