Profitability, productivity and resource use efficiency of banana production in Hetauda-Dumkibas road corridor, Nepal

Abstract

The study employed cost-return analysis, Cobb-Douglas production function and marginal value product-marginal factor cost (MVP-MFC) approach to estimate and analyze profitability, productivity and resource use efficiency, respectively, of banana production in the Hetauda-Dumkibas road corridor. Primary data and information were collected from a total of 160 banana producers, 80 from each district, using pretested semi-structured questionnaires. The benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of banana was 1.57 in the first cropping season and 1.92 in succeeding cropping seasons, indicating that one USD spent on banana production yielded 57 cents profit from the first cropping season and 92 cents from succeeding cropping seasons. Suckers, fertilizers, labors and fixed variables were found to have positive and significant effects on gross income of banana production. The return to scale (1.037) was found slightly increasing. The analysis of resource use efficiency showed that fixed variables (mainly, rental value and insurance), suckers and labors were underutilized resources while plant protection chemicals and manures were over-utilized resources. Expensive and poor insurance coverage, insufficiency of quality suckers and timely unavailability of labors were major reasons for underutilization, while easy availability of manures and higher occurrence of pests and diseases were reasons for overutilization of manures and plant protection chemicals, respectively. Therefore, research on tissue culture technology should be promoted to produce a large scale of disease and pest resistant varieties of bananas. Moreover, policy efforts to enhance reliable distribution networks of insurance companies and intercultural agro-machineries are recommended to increase profitability and productivity from banana production.

Keywords

• bcr
• production function
• resource use efficiency
• banana
• nepal