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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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2013 - 20146
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Subject: Agricultural Economics × End date: 2015 × Start date: 2013 × Type: Thesis ×
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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Migration of Labour in North Bihar - Socio-economic factors and Impact.
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Bhushan, Vidya; Sinha, D. K.
    Migration from rural to urban areas has increased in recent years, especially from North-Bihar. This indicates that most of the developed regions of India have been utilising labour force of backward areas. An effort has been made to examine the labour migration with details of socio-economic factors and its impact. The study was based on primary data, carried out in three villages namely, Rasiari, Kathal, Bhagras of Kiratpur block of Darbhanga district. A sample of 60 respondents,constituting 30 migrants and 30 non-migrants. The analysis of socio-economic variables revealed that the most of migrants belonged to 30-40 years age group (40%), scheduled caste being 53.3%, medium size family accounting for 63.33% of migrants, 40% of sample migrants acquiring matric level education and 76.6% them owned less than 0.5 acre farm size. It was found that companies’ (private business organisation) labour work was considered as the main occupation for almost 50% of migrants, while non-migrants (83.4%) had farming as their main occupation. Remittances contribution was higher than 90% of total annual income of migrant households. Per household Overall annual income of migrant household was enumerated as Rs.103091.59, comparatively high than that of nonmigrant households (Rs.77492.0). Migrant household’s annual expense (Rs.56826.2) per household was comparatively low than that of non-migrant household (Rs.56976.3), It may probably be due to more expenses on agriculture and allied by non-migrant household, though infrastructure was same for both households. Larger proportion of migrants (60%) rushed to north-India viz. Haryana & Punjab, Delhi, and Rajasthan. Both types of migration occurs viz. Seasonal (short term) and long term. Inter-state male migration has been on rise over the years. The analysis of factors of migration showed that income and education exerted positive impact i.e one unit increase in income and education separately, increased the probability of migration by 99.9% and 23.1%, respectively. The negative impact was observed on migration of labour in the study area on account of several factors such as age, cultivable land, loan avail, number of dependent under study. Furthermore, it is revealed in one unit increase in age, reduced the probability of migration by 30.6%, whereas the probability of migration stepped up to 99.1% with one unit decrease in cultivable land. Impact of migration is supposed to have some influence on economic condition of migrant households. It was pointed out that that remittances received from the migrants led to higher standard of living of migrant family. It has been reported in the study that received remittances have increased the consumption of high valued food. It has encouraged the migrant family towards better education of their children. Housing conditions as well as non-farm assets of migrant households were found to improved than that of corresponding non-migrant households. Migration had also impacted positively on health care.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Dynamics of maize production technology- A macro level study
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Shree, Neha; Sinha, D. K.
    The present study “Dynamics of Maize Production Technology-A Macro Level Study” has been undertaken to examine growth in area, production, and productivity of maize in the state of Bihar. The study was based on secondary data. Maize is the third most important cereal crop in Bihar next to rice and wheat. In Bihar maize is cultivated in three seasonskharif, rabi, and summer. Especially during rabi, its production is high due to optimum temperature, long photo-period availablity, better nutrients, irrigation, cultural management, less infection of diseases and pests. In Bihar, maize is cultivated over an area of around 0.65 million hectares and produces 1.55 million tonnes of maize. Major maize producing dristricts in the state are Khagaria, Madhepura, Begusarai, Saharsa and Katihar. Winter (rabi) maize is cultivated mainly in Bihar with production of 1.02 million tonnes, about 65% of the total maize production in the state. This provides unique position to Bihar state in the national maize market with most of maize processing units in north India depending highly on maize from the Bihar state for a significant period of time. With the state productivity much higher than national level, area under maize cultivation is expected to rise as the availability of good quality maize offers significant opportunities for entrepreneurs in the state. The study revealed that the area under maize crop was 882 thousand hectares in 1980-81, which decreased to 600 thousand hectares in 2011-12.Percentage share of maize crop was estimated 8.02% in 2011-12. Growth rate of area was found maximum (5.72%) in zone II during period III and growth rate of production was comparatively larger (10.42%) in zone II during period I. Further the growth rate of productivity was ascertained maximum (7.94%) during period I of zone II. Co-efficient of variation in area for different periods under study was calculated to measure the stability in area of maize crop. Across the different zones, zone I alone showed relatively stable increase in area with co-efficient of variation at 10.16 per cent during overall period i.e. period IV. Variation in area between decade II and decade I showed that the percentage change was positive in zone II (19.88%) and negative in zone I, zone IIIA, and zone IIIB. Variation in area between decade III and decade II similar to that of decade II and decade I reported that the variation in area of maize was 29.15 per cent in zone II during decade III over decade II. It is evident that for the state as a whole, variation percentage was sharply declined within decade I (-21.10%). Within decade II, variation percentage was revealed positive (9.44%) in Bihar. Variation in area of maize within decade III was ascertained low as much as only 3.63 per cent. Analysis of inter-decennial variation in area of HYV maize reported that variation in area under HYV of maize between decade III and decade II was positive (4.23%) in zone II but in all other zones, the estimated variation percentage were negative. For the state as a whole, intra-decennial variation in area of HYV maize showed that variation percentage increased to 20.96% within decade III as compared to decade II. Among various problems of maize processing industries, erratic power supply was observed as the most severe problem with average score of 84.00 in Garret ranking, followed by problem of lack of technical knowledge, lack of improved machinery and lack of popularization of product with average scores of 61.00 , 57.80 and 56.60, respectively.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Production and Marketing of Honey in Samastipur District of Bihar- An Economic Analysis
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Mehrotra, Sneha; Mishra, R. R.
    The present study aims at analysing economic aspects related to production and marketing of honey in Samastipur district of Bihar. The study is based on primary data collected from 60 beekeepers spread over four randomly selected villages of two randomly selected blocks of Samastipur district of Bihar by interviewing individual respondents who were classified into small, medium, and large beekeepers on the basis of number of bee colonies. The average age of beekeepers was observed to be around 36 years. More than three-fourths (76.67 per cent) of the sample beekeepers belonged to medium families having 5 to 7 members. Larger proportion of beekeepers were educated upto secondary level. Majority (66.67 per cent) of the respondents were from backward caste. On an average sample beekeepers owned 2.15 acres of land. As many as 37 out of 60 beekeepers practiced stationary beekeeping all of whom were small beekeepers while 23 of them practiced migratory beekeeping most of whom were either medium or large beekeepers. An average beekeeper household raised 1.4 cattle and 0.7 buffalo. Majority (65.00 per cent) of the beekeepers were engaged in farming and livestock rearing apart from beekeeping and 28.33 per cent of the beekeepers earned their livelihood from crop production and beekeeping. It was observed that total cost, gross income, net income and honey production per bee colony increased with increasing size of apiary. However, cost of production per kg of honey was found to be 34.88, 26.19, 31.92 and 38.54 in case of stationary beekeepers (small apiary), migratory beekeepers (small apiary), medium beekeepers and large beekeepers categories, respectively. Total cost, gross income, net income and honey production per bee colony were found to be higher in case of migratory beekeeping i.e. 905.71, 5850.88, 4945.17 and 34.71 kg, respectively. On the contrary, cost of production was higher ( 34.88/kg) in stationary beekeeping. The analysis indicated that migratory beekeeping was more efficient than stationary beekeeping. B:C ratio was higher for larger size apiary and migratory mode of beekeeping i.e. 5.50 and 6.46, respectively. The share of producer in consumers’ rupee was observed to be lower in channel I (33.05 per cent) than that in channel II (49.21 per cent). It was further observed that total marketing cost was higher in channel I ( 65.22) as compared to that in Channel II ( 62.97). Marketing efficiency for channel I was estimated as 0.49 which was less than that for channel II i.e. 0.97. Hence, channel II was found to be more efficient in comparison with channel I. Lack of knowledge with respect to management of apiary, shortage of beehives and forage, diseases of honey bees, financial problem, lack of proper adoption of technological know-how and lack of skilled man power, lack of beekeeping equipment and materials and death of colony were major constraints in production of honey. Major marketing problems faced by beekeepers in the study area were lower price of honey, problem in management during extreme conditions, transportation problem and lack of proper storage facilities. Measures suggested for improvement by the beekeepers were the need for provision of better marketing facilities and spray of ash dust around beehive stand for some pests.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Performance of WSHGS in Bihar with respect to the Saharsa district.
    (RAU, Pusa (Samastipur), 2013) Singh, Kumudini; Mishra, R. R.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Income and employment pattern in the rural areas of Hajipur (Vaishali district): a micro approach.
    (RAU, Pusa (Samastipur), 2013) Kumar, Jay Prakash; Mishra, R. R.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Economics of production and marketing of mushroom in Pusa block of Samastipur district
    (RAU, Pusa (Samastipur), 2013) Arjun; Sinha, D. K.