PROFITABILITY OF ONION CULTIVATION IN SELECTED AREAS OF PABNA DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Onion is one of the major spices in Bangladesh and it ranks first in production among the spice crops. The objectives of this study were to describe the selected characterist ics of the farmers’ profitabilit y of onion cultivation and to determine the level of profitability of onion cultivation and to identify the factors that significantly influences profitability of onion cultivation. The study was conducted in two villages of Manikhat union under Sujanagar upazila of Pabna district. Data were collected by using interview schedule from the randomly selected 60 respondents during 07 October to 12 November, 2018. Descriptive statistics, multiple regressions were used for analysis. Majority (70 percent) of the respondents had medium profitability, while 13.3 percent and 16.7 percent of them had respectively low and high profitability from onion cultivation. Among eleven selected characteristics, time spent in onion cultivation, level of education, training on onion cultivation, organizational participation and annual family income of the respondents had significant positive contribution with their profitability of onion cultivation. The remaining characteristics of the farmers, namely age, family size, experience in onion cultivation, farm size, land under onion cultivation and income from onion cultivation did not show any significant contribution with their profitability. The findings of the study indicated that farmers’ profitabilit y of onion cultivation has not satisfactory. Still there is a scope to improve farmers’ profitabilit y through more involving wit h organizational participation increasing education, training, annual family income and time spent in onion cultivation