Resource use efficiency of rice farming in Jammu and Kashmir, India

Farming is the most dominant land-use in the Kashmir valley, India. However, the region is characterised by low productivity of agricultural crops that includes rice. To this end, the present study aims to measure economic efficiency of farm land inputs using Cobb-Douglas production model and MVP/MFC ratio. The results reveal that rice production operates at diminishing returns to scale as summation of estimated coefficients of signifcant variables was found to be less than unity (0.76). Coming to the MVP/MFC ratio, the labour was found to be operating beyond price efficiency frontier, indicating allocative inefficiency of the said resource. The study calls for immediate reallocation of resources so that optimum use of inputs is ensured not only to sustain rice production but also enhance proft maximization of indigent rice farmers in the study area.