RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY IN COTTON CULTIVATION IN PUNJAB
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Date
2013
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
The present study had conducted with purpose to measure the technical efficiency in the use of inputs i.e. to extract the maximum output from a given level of inputs in cotton cultivation and to understand the factors which determine the efficiency of Bt cotton growers. In order to accomplish the specific objectives, a sample of 120 farmers from 12 villages of three districts of Punjab namely Faridkot, Muktsar and Mansa were selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. Data were collected by directly interviewing the farmers through a well-structured schedule. The Cobb-Douglas production function technique was used to estimate the elasticity coefficients of different inputs in determining the crop productivity and the Stochastic Frontier application was used to estimate the farm specific technical efficiency. The results of regression analysis indicated that the seed, human labour, tractor use, irrigation, urea and plant protection chemicals applied were statistically significant and had positive regression coefficients which meant that at current level these were under- utilized. The variance parameters, σ2 and γ, for the three categories of farms were significantly different from zero and had positive coefficients and statistically significant at one per cent level. This provides statistical confirmation that there were differences in the technical efficiency among farmers. Thus, the shortfall of realised productivity from the frontier was largely due to technical inefficiency and was mainly within the control of individual farmer. However, a relative higher value of γ for medium farms, which was found to be very close to one, indicated that dominance of efficiency effect over random error was much stronger for medium farms as compared to small and large farms. The study has clearly highlighted that there was an indiscriminate use of some of the factors of production in study area at different levels of farm. This necessitates proper management of these inputs at all farm levels. The issue of irrational use of some of the resources, particularly of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals in cotton cultivation needs to be addressed seriously.
Resource use efficiency, Technical efficiency, Resource Productivity, Bt cotton farmers, Punjab
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Keywords
irrigation, energy resources, biological phenomena, land resources, environment, wood, economics, seasons, manpower, planting