Agricultural Research Management Information System

Home
Research Summary
Search
About Us
- ARMIS
- Brochure
Contact Us
Report
User Request
Data Input
Help
- Operation Manual
  - PDF
  - Video
- Program Area & Commodity
We have reached 37600 number of research entries at this moment.

- Logout

Research Detail

Home
Research
Detail

Profitability and Technical Efficiency of Turmeric Farming: Evidence from Khagrachari District

M. E. A. BEGUM
Senior Scientific Officer
Agricultural Economics Division, BARI, Gazipur.

M. A. MONAYEM MIAH
Principal Scientific Officer
Agricultural Economics Division, BARI, Gazipur.

M. A. RASHID
Principal Scientific Officer
Agricultural Economics Division, BARI, Gazipur.

M. K. HASAN
Principal Scientific Officer
Senior Scientific Officer, SRC, Bogra

M. A. MATIN
Chief Scientific Officer(CSO)
Agricultural Economics Division, BARI, Gazipur.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Turmeric production plays an important role for income generation of the hilly people. It requires comparatively less capital investment for its production, grows with comparatively less use of fertilizer, and adoption of simple technology. But socioeconomic evaluation and documentation on its cultivation in hilly areas is scarce. Therefore, the study estimated the profitability and technical efficiency of turmeric farming in Khagrachhari district. In total 150 turmeric farms located in Khagrachari Sadar, Panchari and Matiranga Upazila of Khagrachari district, were surveyed to study their profitabilities and technical efficiencies. Data were collected, using a pre-tested questionnaire survey during January, 2015. The study revealed that turmeric farming is a profitable farming with some dominating variable costs like seed (rhizome) and sowing, harvesting and carrying. As the net return was Tk. 112139 per hectare and the BCR of sampled farmers was 2.20, this indicates that turmeric farms with a BCR greater than 1 have greater benefits than costs as well as positive net benefits. Seed (rhizome) and fertilizer showed significant positive effects on the turmeric production in the stochastic frontier production model. Turmeric farming displayed much variability in technical efficiency ranging from 44.2 to 95.2% with mean technical efficiency of 82%, which suggested a substantial 18% of potential output of turmeric can be recovered by removing inefficiency. Besides improving technical efficiency, potential also exists for raising turmeric production through higher education and extension services. For a land scarce country like Bangladesh this gain could help increase income and ensure better livelihood for the hilly farmers. The key policy implication of the analysis is that investment in education and extension service would greatly improve technical efficiency. Reducing fallow period from 3-5 years to 2-1 year/s has been deteriorating the hill farming environment. This resulted in unfertile land and fall in the production and productivity. Around 20% of the respondents took measures to control topsoil erosion. For that farmers planted fruits and other trees such as banana, pineapple, bean, pigeon pea, koroi trees etc.; and do mulch, line, drain for water flow.

Keywords: Profitability, Turmeric farming, Productivity, Profitability

Location: Khagrachari district

Start Date: 00-00-2010

End Date: 00-00-2011

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Commodity: Turmeric

Objectives:

To find out the productivity and profitability of turmeric production in the hill areas;
To estimate the technical efficiency of the turmeric farmers;
To identify the factors causing technical inefficiency of turmeric farms;
To identify the constraints to turmeric production and suggest some policy implications for its further improvement.

Methodology:

The study was carried out in Khagrachari district which is one of the major turmeric growing districts in Bangladesh. It accounted for 8.9% of the total turmeric area. A stratified random sample was constructed by dividing the district into Upazila and village. Khagrachhari district consists of eight Upazilas: Dighinala, Khagrachari Sadar, Laxshmichhari, Mahalchhari, Manikchhari, Matiranga, Panchhari and Ramgarh. Among these eight Upazilas Khagrachhari Sadar, Matiranga and Panchhari were purposively selected for the study. These Upazilas were identified as the most important areas for turmeric farming. In 2010-2011, a total of 2039 acres of land was cultivated for turmeric in these Upazilas which is around 41% of cultivated area of turmeric in Khagrachori district (BBS, 2013). Within each of these three Upazilas, two villages were randomly selected based on a complete list of villages. Within each village 20-33 households were randomly selected from the list provided by Su Assistant Agriculture Officer, Department of Agriculture Extension office. This procedure gave a total sample of 150 households involved in turmeric production in Khagrachhari district.

Questionnaire Design and Data Collection

To fulfill the objectives of the present study, one common set of questionnaire was developed and used for collecting data from turmeric farmers. Before making final, the questionnaire was pre-tested among the turmeric farmers in the study areas. Thus, some part of the draft questionnaire was improved, modified and rearranged more chronologically on the basis of the practical experience gained from the pre-testing.The data for this study were collected both from primary and secondary sources. The primary data were collected from the selected farmers for the whole year of 2014. The formal data, however, were collected during January 2015 by using face to face interview technique. The main information gathered includes general household information like household size, age and education level, farming activities, experience with turmeric cultivation, use of inputs including land, labour (both family and hired labour), seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, yields and prices of turmeric, perceptions on constraints to increased turmeric productivity etc. The secondary data were collected from different published and unpublished sources, internet browsing, BBS, Agricultural Statistical Yearbooks, etc.

Source of Information: Annual Research Report, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS DIVISION, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute Joydebpur, Gazipur-1701, August, 2015

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

1.

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The profitability and technical efficiency of turmeric farming have been estimated by applying descriptive and Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function analysis. Production of turmeric was profitable as farmers earned higher level of net returns from turmeric they produced. The gross margin was calculated to be Tk. 127219 per ha in turmeric farming. It is observed that turmeric farms were able to generate positive returns to variable costs. This indicated that farms are willing to pursue turmeric farming as the returns to variable costs are positive. The BCR of sampled farmers was 2.20. This indicated that the turmeric farmers were able to recover Tk. 2.20 per Tk. 1 of investment. According to a stochastic frontier production function, seed (rhizome) and fertilizer showed significant positive effects on the turmeric production. From the factors that were assumed to affect technical efficiency, age, education and higher number of farm visits of extension officers increased the efficiency level of farms in the study areas. All these observations were significantly contribute the efficiency level.

Knowledge Management: Report/Proceedings