PROFITABILITY AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF BANANA PRODUCTION IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF NARSINGDI DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine economic analysis on profitability and technical efficiency of banana farmers in selected Monohardi, Shibpur, Palash upazilas in Narsingdi district. Primary data were collected from randomly selected 100 farmers during February to April 2020. Both tabular and functional analyses were applied in this study. The Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function was used for this study to measure technical efficiency of banana farmers. The study revealed that banana production was profitable. Total cost of production was Tk. 193978.60 per hectare. Gross return was Tk. 346923.73 per hectare and net return was Tk. 286603.40 per hectare. Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was 2.48, which implies that one taka investment in banana production generated profit of Tk. 1.48. The coefficients of parameters like cost of mechanical power, sucker, irrigation, fertilizer, insecticides and bamboo were positive and significant at different level of significance, which indicated positive effect on banana production. Whereas coefficients of parameters such as, cost of human labor and manure were negative and insignificant which implied negative effect on banana production. In the technical inefficiency effect model, experience, farm size, extension service and credit service had negative coefficients indicating that this helped in reducing technical inefficiency of banana farmers. The study also identified some problems faced by the banana farmers like insect-pest and diseases, use of fertilizer and pesticide, scarcity of High Yielding Variety and suggested some recommendations to improve the present production situation so that per hectare yield of banana would possibly be increased.