Agro-economic performance of boro rice cultivation at farmers’ level of haor area in Bangladesh

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to see the boro rice cultivation and agro-economic performance in haor area. A total number of 65 farmers’ were randomly selected by using random sampling technique. Data were collected from the sampled farmers’ through direct interview method using a questionnaire. The study was carried out to list down the available 31 boro rice variety cultivated in the haor area. Most of the farmers had low capital consuming agricultural machinery. Considering all farmers, per hectare labourer required for boro rice cultivation in haor area was 149 man day-1 ha-1. The highest per hectare labourer required for boro rice cultivation in haor area was found 157 man day-1 ha-1 in case of medium farmers followed by large (154 man day-1 ha-1), small (149 man day-1 ha-1), marginal (147 man day-1 ha-1) and landless (138 man day-1 ha-1) farmers, respectively. Considering full cost, the average cost of rice production was Tk. 38153 ha-1 under the all sampled farmers’. Farmers’ average cost of rice production for land preparation, intercultural operation, seed, fertilizer, irrigation, pesticide, harvesting, threshing, carrying and others were of Tk. 3735, 6881.92, 1912.95, 6308.64, 2523.20, 782.80, 9277.07, 3421.27, 3073.57 and 236.87 ha-1, respectively. The average all sampled farmers’ net-return earned form boro rice production was Tk. 52646 ha-1 and yield was 5.31 t ha-1. The economic returns earned from rice production of Tk. 49137, 52595, 50777, 56338 and 55003 ha-1 against the yield of 4.97, 5.26, 5.24, 5.60 and 5.45 t ha-1 for landless, marginal, small, medium and large farmers’ categories, respectively. Productivity of boro rice is low due to imbalance use of fertilizers but yield showed higher than that of national average production in Bangladesh due to one cropped area in haor.