Farmer's Profitability of Potato Cultivation at Rangpur District: The Socio-Economic Context of Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh is predominantly an agricultural country. Agriculture is the indispensable culture of Bangladesh. Agriculture has a enceinte contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. Earlier more than 50% of GDP came from this sector. Various types of crops are produced in this country. These crops might have been categorized into two-food crops and cash crops. Potato is one of the food-stuff of the most people of the world as well as Bangladesh. Potato crop is being treated as foremost crop. This study was conducted to approximation the cost of production and profitability of potato producers at Rangpur district. Data collected from 30 farmers using simple random sampling technique. The potato farmers showed individual differences in their socio-economic characteristics and absolute majority of them belonged to young age category (20-35 years) having medium family size, illiterate, medium farm size (0.34-1.0 acre), (1-10 years) farming experience. Most of the respondents used cardinal variety of potato seed and sell their output at home. Farmers who sell potato in the market were more profitable than others. The study also designates that the large farmers were most profitable compared to others. Major problem faced by the potato farmers were lower price of potato during harvesting period, price fluctuation , shortage of capital, high charge of cold storage, lack of good quality seed, perish ability of potato, poor storage facility, higher price of inputs and lack of marketing facility etc. Proper steps should be postulated by Government to puzzle out this problem. The determinations of the study will generate basic economic data on the production practices of potato. At long last it will be helpful to the planners and policy makers in contriving micro or macro level policy for the enlargement of potato production in the country.

Production, Marketing System, Storage and Future Aspect of Potato in Bangladesh

“…The socio-economic status of farmer's influences the production of potato (Mukul et al, 2013). This status includes age, educational quality, farm size, farming experience, ability of understands for choice of variety of potato according to the soil quality and so on of farmers.…”

“…Basically, major portion of farmers are illiterate and young. Among potato cultivating farmers, 53.3% were illiterate, average age in between 20-35 years, and working experience in between 1-10 years (Mukul et al, 2013). Notable thing was no higher educated people in Bangladesh were directly involved in the cultivation of potato.…”

“…Uses of potato and other agricultural product were also described in different paper (e.g. Fadel, 2000;Yamada et al, 2009;Izmirlioglu and Demirci, 2012;Mukul et al, 2013;Hossain and Abdulla, 2015;Pacifico and Paris, 2016). So the continuous increased demand insists to produce huge amount of potatoes.…”

Forecasting Potato Production in Bangladesh by ARIMA Model

“…Azad et al [13] try to find the optimum conditions for bioethanol production from potato of Bangladesh. There are also some works reported on the potato in Bangladesh (Elias et al [14]; Elias et al [15]; Hakim [16]; Rashid [17]; Arif [18]; Akhter et al [19] and Mukul et al [20]). Previous studies about different agricultural crops in Bangladesh (Hossain and Abdulla [21]; Hossain and Abdulla [22]; Hossain and Abdulla [23]; Abdulla and Hossain [24]; Hossain and Abdulla [25]; Hossain and Abdulla [26]; Hossain and Abdulla [27]; Hossain et al [28]) used ARIMA model to analyze and forecast the production of different agricultural crops like jute, tea, wheat, tomatoes etc.…”

Economic Evaluation of Production Costs and Returns of Potato Crop in Sylhet Region of Bangladesh

“…The gross return and gross margin of potato cultivation in Rangpur district were BDT211978 and BDT139388 per hectare, respectively whereas the average gross margin and BCR for potato cultivation were BDT174319/ha and 2.40, respectively in Munshiganj, Bogra and Jessore [14]. The average net profit of potato production per acre in these districts was BDT12731 but the medium farmers cultivate more land; however, the net profit was highest for large farmers [15]. On an average, per hectare, cost of production for potato in Sylhet district was BDT194114 and the average per hectare yield of potato was 17194 Kg [16].…”