The study was undertaken in Satkhira sadar Upazila of Satkhira district, the southwest part of the country. Sampling technique was used to select representative farmers to minimize time and cost of the study. For the study, at first a list of the farmers who produced either Binadhan-8 or BR-28 was collected from Upazila Agriculture Office. From that list, 30 Binadhan-8 producing farmers were selected purposively and 30 BR-28 producing farmers were selected randomly. In addition, some relevant information was also collected from a group of well-to-do farmers with economic solvency. Boro season generally begins in January- February and ends in mid April and May. To satisfy the objectives of the study, data on the profitability of Binadhan-8 and BR-28 were collected during the Boro season of 2011 using survey method. Both primary and secondary were used in this study. Conventional statistical tools like average, percentages, ratio etc. were applied to arrive at meaningful findings in this study. Cost and return analysis was done using the following profit equation.
Π = Σ PmQm - Σ (Pxi Xi) - TFC
Where,
Π = Net return (Tk/ha);
Pm = Per unit price of produce (Tk/kg);
Qm = Quantity of the production per hectare (kg);
Pxi = Per unit price of ith inputs (Tk);
Xi = Quantity of the ith inputs per hectare (kg);
TFC = Total fixed cost (Tk); and
i = 1,2,3,...............,n ( number of inputs).
Undiscounted benefit cost ratio (BCR) was used to compare the profitability of Binadhan-8 and BR-28 rice. Cobb-Douglas production function was used to estimate the effects of various inputs for the production of Binadhan – 8 and BR – 28 because of the best fit of the sample data. The functional form of the Cob-Douglas multiple regression equation was as follows:
Yi = aX1b1 X2b2 X3b3 X4b4 X5b5 X6b6 eu
The equation may be alternatively expressed as log-linear form:
Where, Yi = Gross return (Tk/ha); ln a = Intercept or constant term; X1 = Human labour cost (Tk/ha); X2 = Animal labour/power tiller cost (Tk/ha); X3 = Seed/seedling cost (Tk/ha); X4 = Cost of fertilizer (Tk/ha); X6 = Insecticide cost (Tk/ha); b1, b2,-----------,b6 = Coefficients of the respective variables; Ui = Error term; ln = Natural logarithm; e = Base of natural logarithm; and i = 1, 2, 3,…,30.