COMPARATIVE PROFITABILITY AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY OF ONION AND GARLIC PRODUCTION IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF SHARIATPUR DISTRICT

Abstract

This piece of research was undertaken in order to assess the comparative profitability and resource use efficiency of onion and garlic production in Shariatpur District. A total number of 60 farmers were randomly selected. Necessary statistical analyses were performed to achieve the objectives of the study. The Cobb-Douglas production function was used to determine the effects of individual inputs on and resource use efficiency of onion and garlic production. Per hectare total return for onion and garlic was about Tk.557023 and Tk. 665706, gross margin was about Tk. 361507 and Tk. 447925 and the net return was about Tk. 286487 and Tk. 371438 respectively. The undiscounted benefit cost ratio (BCR) was 2.06 and 2.26 for onion and garlic production respectively. The results indicated that garlic production was more profitable than the onion production. The net return was influenced by most of the factors included in land preparation, human labor, seed, fertilizer, irrigation and machinery. The return to scale of onion and garlic production was 1.46 and 1.10 respectively. This implies that the production function exhibits increasing return to scale. Resource use efficiency indicated that all of the resources were under used for onion production except overutilization of seed or bulb and zinc fertilizer. On the other hand, it indicated that all of the resources were under used for garlic production except overutilization of MoP fertilizer. Farmers producing onion and garlic faced problems related to production and marketing of the crops. It may be concluded that the farmers should be encouraged to grow more garlic rather than onion as a means of increasing farm income through diversification of crop production in the area under study.