PROFITABILITY AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF BORO RICE PRODUCTION IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF PANCHAGARH DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Boro is the most important and single largest crop in Bangladesh in respect of volume of production. It has been persistently contributing to higher rice production in last successive years. Present study was designed to measure the profitability and technical efficiency of Boro farmers in selected areas of three upazillas namely Sadar, Tetulia and Debigonj under Panchghar district. Primary data were collected from randomly selected total70 farmers from the study area. Both tabular and functional analyses were applied in this study. The major findings of the study revealed that Boro production is profitable. Total cost of production of Boro was Tk. 86473.85 per hectare. Gross return of Boro was Tk. 106114 per hectare and that of net return was Tk. 19640.15 per hectare, respectively. Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was found to be 1.23 which implies that one-taka investment in Boro production generated return Tk.1.23. The Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function was used for this study to measure technical efficiency of Boro farmers. The coefficients of parameters like human labor, TSP and insecticide was negative. Where seed, urea and irrigation was found positive and significant at 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significant respectively. The study revealed that a considerable improvement took place to increase household income of the farmers in the study area and to improve the socioeconomic conditions with the introduction of large-scale commercial Boro production. The study also identified some problems and constraints faced by the Boro farmers and suggested some recommendations to improve the present production situation so that yield of Boro would possibly be increased.