Comparative analysis of resource use efficiency in menthol- mint cultivation on different farm size groups in India

The Mentha arvensis (menthol mint) is an important essential oil bearing plant and widely used in food, flavour, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Amongst the aromatic crops grown in India mentha is an important crop. India has the largest production, consumption and export of mentha. The favourable climatic conditions of Rampur offer enormous potential for the development of mentha, but the low crop yield and high cost of cultivation and poor resource-use efficiency discourage the growers to give boost to its cultivation. There is need to tape this untapped potential so that production will increase and growers will be benefitted. The present study was conducted in Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh with the objective to find out resource use efficiency of farmers in mentha cultivation. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select blocks, villages and the respondents from the four villages of two blocks of Rampur district. Cobb-Douglas production function was employed to estimate the resource use efficiency. The variables seed on small farms, fertilizers on medium and irrigation and human labour on large farms were found to be significantly influencing the mentha yield, while the variable distillation facility was found to be significantly influencing the mentha yield on all farms except large ones.