PROFITABILITY AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF BORO RICE PRODUCTION IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF NILPHAMARI DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Boro rice is the most important and single largest crop in Bangladesh in respect of volume of production. It has been persistently contributing to higher rice production in last successive years. Present study was designed to measure the profitability and technical efficiency of boro rice farmers in selected areas of three upazillas Dimla, Domar, Jhaldhaka under Nilphamari district. Primary data were collected from randomly selected total 60 farmers from the study area. 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 boro rice farmers. The major findings of the study reveal that boro rice production is profitable. Total cost of production of Boro rice was Tk. 88748.85 per hectare. Gross return of boro rice was Tk. 130904.38 per hectare and net returns of Boro rice was Tk. 42155.53 per hectare. Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was found to be 1.47 which implies that one-taka investment in boro rice production generated Tk.1.47. The coefficients of parameters like Human Labor and TSP was negative. Where Seed, Urea, and Irrigation was found positive and significant at 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significant respectively. In the technical inefficiency effect model, experience, farm size, extension service and credit service have negative coefficients indicating that this helps in reducing technical inefficiency of boro rice farmers. The study revealed that a considerable improvement took place to increase household income of the farmers in the study area and to improve the socioeconomic conditions with the introduction of large-scale commercial boro rice production. The study also identified some problems and constraints faced by the boro rice farmers and suggested some recommendations to improve the present production situation so that yield of boro rice would possibly be increased.