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Subject: Agricultural Economics × Author: Deepak Singh × End date: 2007 × Start date: 2007 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Agro-processing of commercial crops in western Haryana-an economic analysis
    (CCSHAU, 2007) Deepak Singh; Malik, Dharmpal
    Processing of farm products offers great scope, conversion of farm produce to the consumer commodity and in process reduces the wastage, increasing shelf-life, resulting in value addition and higher income transfer to the farmer. The present investigation is based on the time series data pertaining to area, production, yield and market arrivals of major crops scanned from published sources. The information with regards to machinery & equipments, labour, various inputs like raw material, oil & greasing, electricity/fuel, packaging & miscellaneous etc., outputs, input-output prices and constraints encountered in processing of agricultural produce was collected from sixty agro-processors from the Hisar and Bhiwani districts of Haryana state through personal interviewing them. Appropriate analytical tools and techniques were employed to draw meaningful inferences from the study. The results reveal that area twisted towards more remunerative crops wheat, paddy, cotton, rapeseed-mustard and sugarcane in Haryana state. The crop acreage shifted towards wheat, cotton and rapeseed-mustard in Bhiwani district while there was a shift in area towards wheat, paddy, cotton, rapeseed-mustard and sugarcane. The area under gram, other pulses, and coarse cereals was gradually replaced by profitable and less risky crops. Production of wheat, paddy, cotton, rapeseed-mustard increased in the study area as a composite effect of increased area and enhance productivity. The yield of almost crops registered increase over the time period due to evolution and cultivation of high yielding varieties, use of improved farm practices, use of chemical fertilizers, and efficient use of available irrigation water and mechanization of farm operation. The increased production of wheat, paddy, cotton and rapeseed-mustard resulted into increase in their market arrivals. The value of Benefit-cost ratio calculated of processing units of commercial crops i.e. cotton, rapeseed-mustard and gram was more than one. It indicates the economics viability of processing units in the study area. The break-even analysis also indicates that all processing units were operating more than the break-even quantity. The cotton, gram and rapeseed-mustard processing units utilized about 26, 34 and 74 percent of their plant capacity to the maximum extent. Among selected processing units, the cotton processing unit provides maximum employment of skilled labour and casual labour in the study area. The major problems encountered by the agro-processing units were getting no-objection certificate, license from Govt. department, difficulties in getting power connection, higher rate of interest and inadequate amount of credit, irregular supply of raw material, higher marketing charges, higher rate of electricity/fuel charges, lack of technical manpower and under utilization of installed capacity of the unit. First Govt. should take necessary step to mitigate the constraints of agro-processing units and encourage the establishment of processing units in the rural area through providing some incentives to absorb surplus rural work force.