PROFITABILITY OF LITCHI CULTIVATION: A STUDY ON POVERTY REDUCTION IN SELECTED AREAS OF PABNA DISTRICT

Abstract

Litchi is one of the most important sub-tropical evergreen trees. Litchi fruit is famous for its excellent quality, juicy, slightly sour and sweetly taste, characteristics pleasant flavor and for attractive colour. The overall objectives of the present study were to examine the socio-demographic profile of litchi producing farmers, to assess profitability of litchi cultivation. Pabna district was selected for the study on the basis of extensive cultivation of litchi cultivation. Simple random sampling technique had been used for selecting 72 sample farmers. The data was collected by using questionnaire. After analyzing the data, per tree gross return, net return, and gross margin were found to be Tk. 10115, Tk. 4647& Tk. 6613 respectively. Total costs of litchi production were calculated at Tk. 5468 per tree. Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was found to be 1.85 for litchi cultivation. Thus it was found that litchi cultivation was highly profitable. Production function analysis suggested that, among the variables included in the model, cost of human labor, and cost of irrigation, cost of urea, and cost of pesticide had a positive and significant effect on the gross return of litchi production, except for cost of land preparation, cost of TSP, cost of MP, cost of cow dung had a positive and insignificant effect on the gross return of litchi. This study also identified some of the problems and constraints associated with litchi cultivation. These were categorized into technical, economic, marketing and social problems. Problems faced by the farmers were ranked on the basis of corresponding percentages. The problems and constraints, of course, are interrelated with one another and hence, need to be removed comprehensively through an integrated programme for the overall development of litchi cultivation.