An economic analysis of agricultural mechanization in West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh

TThe debate on the impact of mechanisation on agriculture has continued unabated since four decades. This debate has become further complicated by the biological, mechanical and other technological innovations. Research has been conducted on different aspects of mechanisation throughout the world. Later on a good number of studies have been conducted in various parts of the country on farm mechanizations brief review of select studies is presented in the next few pages. Various aspects of mechanisation were reviewed and grouped as Study of impact of Machanisation on Labor Employment, Income and productivity and Economic Efficiency. The main objective of the paper is to compare the cost of cultivation among the mechanized and non-mechanized farm households in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. This study is on primary and secondary data. West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh has been chosen for the study. 200 farmers are selected through multi stage random sampling. The empirical data clearly shows that the total cost of production is Rs 90,256/- on mechanised farm holdings and Rs. 83376/- on non-mechanised farm holdings. The intensive use of inputs, the higher per acre investment by all cost concepts and in all size groups of holdings is associated with the mechanization. The per acre prime cost on mechanised farm holdings is Rs.72,724/-, Rs.75,700/-, Rs.73,263/- and Rs. 67,684 on marginal, small, medium and large farms respectively, while they are Rs.68,124/-, Rs.67,546/-, Rs.68163/- and Rs.66,267/- on corresponding size groups of non-mechanised farm holdings respectively. This implies that per acre prime cost is higher in all size-groups of mechanised farms when compared to the corresponding size groups of non-mechanised farm holdings. Thus the inter-size-group comparison of prime cost reveals that there is a direct relation between farm size and prime cost on mechanised farm holdings while no consistent relationship is found on non-mechanised farm holdings.