Enhancing farmer's income through crop diversification: A case of contract farming of chicory cultivation in Punjab agriculture^#

The present paper analyzes the profitability and income from chicory, a newly introduced crop in Punjab agriculture and emphasizes the need for diversification for increasing farmer's income. Primary data pertaining to the year 2014–15 was collected using personal interview method from a sample of 60 chicory growers scattered over 38 villages of five districts of Punjab namely Amritsar, Jalandhar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Tarn Taran through purposive sampling technique. The comparative economics revealed that the total variable cost was almost two and a half times higher in chicory than wheat whereas chicory crop gave much higher returns than wheat crop. The net returns came out to be 55582.13 for chicory whereas it was 41533.47 per hectare for wheat depicting a difference of 14048.66. Although the net returns were more in chicory crop but benefit-cost ratio of wheat was more by a difference of 0.69. The per hectare net returns for the most successful chicory grower was 118044.80 which was 112.37 per cent higher than the average net returns of chicory growers. Had this crop been grown with fully developed package of practices, the farmers would have earned more. The important constraints in the cultivation of this crop were delayed payment, high labour needs inadequate facilities for unloading the crop and lack of technical knowledge.