PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS OF POTATO CULTIVATION: A STUDY ON SOME SELECTED AREAS OF MUNSHIGANJ DISTRICT

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a principle vegetable crop in Bangladesh for its commercial and nutritional value. The current study was basically designed to determine the ―Profitability Analysis of Potato Cultivation: A study on some selected areas of Munshiganj district." Primary data were collected random selection method from five Upazilas under Munshiganj district namely Lohajang, Sreenagar, Sirajdikhan, Tongibari and Gazaria. Descriptive statistics and Cobb-Douglas production function were applied to achieve the objectives of the study. The study found that potato production was lucrative. Total cost of potato growing was BDT 144650.24 and the gross return amount was BDT 332500.00 per hectare. The net return from potato production was BDT 187849.76 per hectare. Undiscounted Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was found 1.29. The outcome of the Cobb- Douglas production function showed increasing returns to scale and also exhibited that potato cultivation was highly dominated by human labor, irrigation, manure, fertilizer, insecticide etc. Efficiency analysis indicated that most of the farmers inefficiently used the inputs except human labor, MOP, TSP and insecticide. The study also revealed some constraints associated with potato cultivation. These were grouped into economic and technical, marketing and storage problems. Again, the limitation includes lack of financial capital, high cost of the input, low cost of output, inadequate quality seed, high cost of labor and lack of extension services, etc. The problems and constraints, of course, are interrelated with one another and hence, need to be removed comprehensively for the overall betterment of potato growers.