Economic analysis of farm power scenario in Punjab agriculture
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Date
2017
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
The present study, based on both primary and secondary data, was conducted to have an overview of farm power scenario of India with particular reference to Punjab, to carry out the assessment of the availability and utilization of farm power sources in Punjab particularly in relation to rice and wheat crop and to bring out the differentials in proportion of biological and mechanical farm power utilization. The primary data for crop year 2014-15 collected from 100 farmers, spread across the standard land holding categories from Ludhiana and Amritsar districts of Punjab formed the basis of the study. In India, the farm power increased seven times from 40.10 million kW in 1960-61 to 282.73 million kW by 2013-14, as against an increase from 1.39 million Kw in 1960-61 to 18.24 Kw by 2012-13 observed in the case of Punjab. The density of tractors, the major source of farm power, increased from just two tractors per thousand hectares in 1960-61 to as high as 115 tractors per thousand hectares by 2012-13, the corresponding figure for India being 35 (even less than one third). Primary data reveals that the large land farms had the highest per farm power availability (42.62kW) followed by medium (30.66kW) and small (10.16kW) farms, which were statistically different (p<0.05) from one another. In the case of wheat cultivation, the mechanical power accounted for 43.5 per cent of the total cost on small farms in comparison to a smaller proportion in case of medium (41.9 %) and large (41.4 %) farms, which could be attributed to the fact that small farmers had to hire the machinery, which reflects itself in terms of use of mechanical power, although hiring costs have been adjusted to incorporate the effect of labour cost involved. The mechanization index (MI) for wheat and paddy crop was found to be 0.75 and 0.42 respectively. The agronomic productivity of wheat has been recorded as 19.21 quintals per acre with no significant difference (p<0.05) observed within the size group of farmers. Same was the case with paddy productivity, which was observed at 29.75 quintals on an overall level. The effect of significantly lower power availability at the disposal of small farms was more than offset by the higher mechanization index, indicating higher farm power utilization and left no detrimental effect on productivity, economic as well as agronomic. The study conclusively established that inspite of significantly lower level of farm power availability, the small farmers were not at disadvantageous position as they could be at par with their counterparts with larger holdings in terms of farm power utilisation by virtue of facility of custom hiring of farm machinery.
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