Agriculture (Potato) productivity and profitability

Abstract

Potato is one of the important food crops in Bangladesh. Its demand is increasing day by day. The Tuber Crop Research Centre (TCRC) of BARI released 40 HYV potato varieties and disseminated them in the farmer’s fields through different agencies. But most varieties were not adopted well by the farmers due to unknown reasons. Therefore, an attempt was made to assess the level of adoption and profitability of BARI released potato variety at farm level. Data were collected from 14 randomly selected potato farmers from Dinajpur districts during January-February 2016. The results indicated that 31% potato areas were covered by Diamand variety, 7% by Cardinal, 35% by Granola, and the rest 7% areas were covered by Lalpakri. The major share of total cost was for seed (42%) followed by fertilizer (21%) and human labour (14%). The average cost of potato was 1331 decimal with average profit of Tk276.36 per decimal. The benefit cost ratios were 1.59 and 1.82 on full cost and variable cost basis. Human labour, land preparation, seed, and irrigation had positive and significant effect on potato production. No availability of HYV seed at proper time, lack of technical knowledge, high price of seed and fertilizer, infestation of insect and diseases, and lack of storage facilities were the major problems of potato production