IMPACT OF SPECIALIZED AGRICULTURAL CREDIT ON ONION PRODUCTION IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF PABNA DISTRICT

Abstract

The study is conducted to have a realistic understanding of factors affecting access to specialized agricultural credit (SAC), utilization pattern and impacts of SAC on onion production. Some descriptive statistics have been used to assess the socio-economic profile of the farmers. Then the binary discrete choice model (logit model) is used to find out the determinants of access to SAC. To explore the utilization pattern of SAC for onion cultivation mostly descriptive statistics is used. Finally the Cobb–Douglas production function is applied to evaluate the impact of SAC on onion production. To conduct the study, primary data has been collected from Sujanagar and Santhia upazila of Pabna district. A total of 80 onion cultivators have been interviewed using a well-structured questionnaire. It is observed that, majority of the sample farmers fall in the category of medium farmer (73.75 percent), were between the ages of 36 and 45 years old (35 percent), have a primary level of education (46 percent) and the average family size is 5.42 in the study area. The logit model analysis indicates that among the socio-economic determinants, farmer‟s education level, family size, farm size, and farming income were positive and significantly influenced farmers‟ access to SAC. The findings of the study reveals that, farmers in the study area utilized their maximum part of SAC for onion cultivation (88.38 percent) followed by other crop cultivation (5.13 percent), family expenditure (4.12 percent) and livestock production (2.37 percent). The study results indicates that those farmers who use SAC in onion cultivation, their per hectare production of onion is 7.13 percent higher compared to those who don‟t use SAC. Majority of the farmers (77.5 percent) mentioned lack of information and knowledge about SAC as the main reason behind not receiving credit facility. Thus, efficient disbursement of the credit among farmers through widespread dissemination of information and proper policy management can be an effective way to increase domestic onion production and to reduce the country‟s import dependency.