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An empirical study on production and returns to scale of Paddy Crop in Jammu and Kashmir with special reference to district Anantnag.

Tajamul Khurshid
production and returns to scale of Paddy Crop

1. Introduction:

Rice culture and consumption in Kashmir has been in vogue since the drainage of water from Satisar by Kashyap Reshi. Among the chief crops that ripen in autumn in Kashmir, rice (Oryza Sativa) (dhaney/shali in Kashmir) has been extensively grown in irrigated lands since time immemorial for food and fodder purposes.  Rice remained a crop of prime importance in Kashmir; it alone contributes more than 74 percent of the total rice produced in the state. It is a kharif crop and is sown in May-June and harvested in autumn. It is primarily grown in plain areas. The rice crop grown mostly in Kashmir region also known as ‘Cultivators Paradise’. Rice is grown in varied soil conditions but deep clayey and loamy soil, which turn in to soft mud when puddle and develop cracks on drying, provides the ideal condition and rainfall between 150-300 cm is suitable for its growth. Cultivation of rice requires hot and moist climate, day temperature of 20-330C and night temperature of 15-200C are suitable for optimum growth and higher yield. Rice production in the state is predominantly a mono cropped activity with a very high consumption and most important staple food than other states of India. Anantnag, Jammu, Baramulla and Pulwama are the major paddy districts of the State. These four districts together produces about 65.39 percent of total paddy production and occupies about 59.87 percent of total area under paddy in the state. Anantnag and Pulwama are the only districts in Jammu and Kashmir whose production is large as compared to remaining districts of the state. Anantnag is also called the rice bowl of the state, and it is equally rich in landscape of lush green meadows as the district is provided with rich natural and water resource management, apart from this the Anantnag district has got the large area under the cultivation of rice, 40375 hectares of land is under cultivation of rice, and the production of rice in the district is 105726 tonnes with a productivity of 2.62t/ha. The area under the rice is distributed by both the regions in which about 40 percent of area is with Jammu division while as 60 percent of the area is with Kashmir division. According to the Census 1994-95, the Kashmir region accounted for 61 per cent of total cultivable land under rice with the highest yield of 26.13 q/ha as compared to approximately 15.96 q/ha in the Jammu region.
Paddy crop is the main staple food of the state particularly Kashmir region. There is a need to increase the production of the said crop because of growing population and decreasing area under the paddy crop as the cultivators shift from this crop to other cash crops because the prices of this crop is low which hardly bears the cost of cultivation. Thus for analyzing this following objectives were taken.

Objectives:

  1. To know the production, productivity and area of paddy crop in Jammu and Kashmir State.
  2. To estimate the input-output relations between production and different input factors
  3. 2. Review of literature:
Singh and Chandra (2003): tested various functional forms and found that exponential function was the most appropriate to examine the growth trends of area, production and yield of paddy in India. They studied the growth performance for different periods and used ‘t’ test to test the significant difference between growth rates of any two periods of aggregate. The study found that as a result of increase in area under cultivation and yield, the overall growth rate in paddy production had been very significant (2.96) during the 1975/76 –1990/00period. Yield increased by 2.42 per cent whereas acreage increased by 0.52 percent.
Tuong and Bouman, (2001): Rice is a proliferate user of water, consuming half of all fresh water resources. In Asia, 17 million ha of irrigated rice area may experience “physical water scarcity” and 22 million ha may have “economic water scarcity” by 2025.
Virk et al., (2004): Rice is one of the important food crops in the world and ranks second in terms of area and production. It is the staple food for about 50 per cent of the population in Asia, where 90 per cent of the world’s rice is grown and consumed. Asia’s food security depends largely on the irrigated rice fields, which account for more than 75 per cent of the total rice production.
Velayutham and Palaniappan (2003): studied the crop diversification in India and found that more than 250 cropping systems are being followed in the country of which 30 cropping systems are predominant. These 30 systems include rice-wheat, rice-rice, rice-grain, rice-mustard, rice-groundnut, rice-sorghum, groundnut-rice and sorghum-rice. Crop diversification had been studied by analyzing change in area under major crops during the period 1970-71 to 1998-99. It was found that the area under total cereals remained static at about 102 million hectares while there had been a significant increase in non-grain crops such as cotton, sugarcane, fruit and vegetables during that period. The economic return was one of the major considerations for adoption of major cropping systems at farm as well as regional level.
This paper has been divided into four sections. Section 1 deals introduction with objective. In second section the review of literature has been given. The methodology is in section 3. Section 4 deals with empirics and Fifth section is related with conclusion and policy implications.
The detailed estimates of the effects of each of the technological factor on productivity of paddy crop are given below:
Tractor:
The elasticity of coefficient so far tractor input is concerned which has been found positive in large and small type of farmers, and has been found to be significant at 10% level of significance in case of small farmers, and While as it is insignificant in case of large farmers. The magnitude of the coefficient indicates that keeping the other explanatory variables constant 1% increase in mechanical labour would yield 0.65% and 0.025% in the production of paddy crop in the category of large and small farmers.
Human Labour:
The elasticity coefficient associated with labour is found to be positive in case of marginal farmers and negative in small and large farmers, and has been found to be insignificant at 1% level in case of marginal farmers. While as it is found to be insignificant in the large and small cultivators. The magnitude of this input factor indicates that 1 percent increase in labour would lead to increase 0.386% in the production of paddy crop in case of marginal farmers, however 1% decrease in human labour would lead to decrease 0.051% and 0.012% in case of large and small farmers.
Seed:
The elasticity of coefficient of Seed is positive in large and marginal farmers, while in case of small farmers it is negative and has been found to be significant at 5% level in case of large farmers. While as it is found to be insignificant in cases of small and marginal. The magnitude of this coefficient indicates that keeping the other explanatory variables constant 1% increase in Seed would lead to increase 0.094% and 0.065% in the production of paddy crop in case of large and marginal farmers, and 1% decrease in Seed would lead to decrease 0.027% of paddy crop production in case of small farmers.

 Manure:
The elasticity coefficient associated with manure use is positive in all the three cases, and has been found to be significant at 5% level in case of large farmers and 10% level in cases of small and marginal farmers. The magnitude of this coefficient indicates that keeping the explanatory variables constant 1% increase in manure would lead to increase 0.378%, 0.325% and 0.140% in the production of paddy crop in all the three cases viz, large, small and marginal cultivators respectively.
Fertilizer:
The elasticity coefficient associated with fertilizer use is positive in all the three cases (large, small and marginal cultivators, and has been found significant at 1% level in case of large and small and 5% level in case of marginal cultivators. The magnitude of this coefficient indicates that keeping the explanatory variables constant 1% increase in fertilizer would lead to increase 0.422%, 0.565% and 0.334% in paddy production in cases of large, small and marginal cultivators respectively.
  1. Conclusion and policy implication

Production of the rice in the state is pre dominantly a mono cropped activity with a very high consumption and most staple food than other states of India. Mostly four districts together produces about 65.39% of paddy production and has 59.87% of total area under the crop. The Anantnag district supercides in case of area and production in Jammu and Kashmir. So, far the census 1994-95 is concerned the Kashmir region accounted for 61% of total cultivated land under rice with a highest yield 26.13 quintal/ha.
The study shows almost increasing trend with respect to area, production and productivity so far the figures from 1999-2000 to 2012-2013 are concerned. Compound annual growth rate of area, production and productivity of rice in Jammu and Kashmir from 1999-2000 to 2012-2013 has been found positive (0.55%, 2.44% and 1.89 %) respectively. Coefficient of correlation with respect to large farmers found to be (0.71%) and coefficient of all accounted input factors except human labour has been found positive in case of large farmers. With respect to small farmers (0.67%) correlation has been seen and coefficients of input factors such as tractor, manure and fertilizer observed positive. In case of marginal farmer’s coefficients of all input factors has been found positive and (0.58%) correlation. In All the three type of cultivators (large, small and marginal) increasing to returns to scale ( ) has been seen in the present study. It is also observed in the study that great percentage of the variation in terms of production has been explained by independent input factor (manure).

Policy implications:

  • There is need to improve the irrigation facilities as the farmers face the problems of scarcity of water. Therefore government should take proper steps to plant pump sheds.
  • Fertilizers and other farm substances should be provided to the cultivators on cheaper rates.
  • The department of agriculture should provide high yielding variety seeds.
  • The Government should make proper arrangements for the production and distribution of pesticides among farmers.
  • The Government as well as other financial agencies should provide credit facilities to the cultivators at affordable rates.
  • The minimum price support policy should be properly implemented so that the cultivators may get appropriate prices.
  • The information should be given to cultivators from time to time through media or social networks about the use of modern techniques.
  • The Government should organize awareness programmes through nukkad show puppet show/ seminar/ kisan mela regarding new farm technology.

References:

  • Kachroo, J and D, Kachroo (2007), Economic Analysis of Fine Rice Production under subtropical Agro Climatic Zone of Jammu Region of Jammu and Kashmir state, Agricultural situation in India,pp.413-417.
  • Mysir Jeelani Kaloo, Reena Patidar, Tapan Choure, (2014), “Production and Productivity of Rice in Jammu and Kashmir: An Economic Analysis”, International Journal of Research (IJR), Vol-1, P.446-473.
  • Sakeena Rather (2014), “Production and Productivity Trends of Paddy Cultivation in Jammu & Kashmir”, Indian Journal of Research, Vol.3, P.42-44.
  • Singh, G., and Chandra, H. (2003). Production and Economic Factors Growth in Indian Agriculture. Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal.
  • Tuong, T.P. and Bouman, B.A.M. (2001) Rice production in water-scare environments, Paper presented at the Water Productivity Conference, Colombia, Sri Lanka.
  • Velayutham, M., and Palaniappan, S. P. (2003). Crop Diversification for Sustainable Agriculture. Agricultural Situation in India, Vol. 60, No. 5, pp.251-254.
  • Virk, P.S., Khush, G.S. and Peng, S. (2004) Breeding to Enhance Yield Potential of Rice at IRRI: The Idotype Approach, IRRI, p. 5-9.

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