Potato production in hilly regions of nepal

Resource Use Efficiency Analysis for Potato Production in Nepal

Mahesh Sapkota1@ and Mahima Bajracharya2
1Ministry of Agriculture, Land Management and Cooperative, Department of Agriculture, Harihar bhawan, Nepal; @:
sapkotamahes@gmail.com, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4391-7065
2Ministry of Agriculture, Land Management and Cooperative, National Agricultural Research and Development Fund, Singhadurbar
Plaza, Kathmandu, Nepal
Received 10 March 2017, Revised 2 Dec 2017, Accepted 25 Jan 2018, Published 28
April 2018
Scientific Editors: Hari Bahadur KC, Dinesh Thapa, Bal Kishna Joshi
Copyright © 2018 NARC. Permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in
any medium provided the original work is properly cited.
OPEN ACCESS
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
ABSTRACT
Potato is one of the most important staple foods supporting food security and livelihood to millions of marginalized and poor
farmers in Nepal. Generally the smallholders’ farmers, especially those located in remote villages are inadequately informed
about technical knowledge, inputs and efficient use of resources causing poor production and low productivity. Thus, the
present survey aimed to examine the efficiency of resources used in potato production in Baglung District, one of the remote
hilly place located in Central Himalaya. The total of 120 potato growing households was selected using simple random
sampling technique from the two potato pocket in 2016. The regression coefficients of each inputs using Cobb-Douglas
production function were estimated using Stata software. Our results showed that major inputs such as labor, bullock, Farm
Yard Manure (FYM) and intercultural operations were overused and need to decrease in terms of cost by 109, 177, 51 and
185%, respectively for its optimum allocation. Similarly, seed was found underused and need to increase its cost by 70% for
optimum allocation. We concluded that inadequate training, exposure, knowledge gap and extension service to farmers in
study sites were the reasons that farmers were using their resources inefficiently. It is recommended that the farmers
involved in potato farming in the surveyed sites should be provided with additional proper technical knowledge for
optimizing the use of resources which would help to increase the production and return from potato production.
Keywords: Efficiency, Inputs, Optimum, Potato, Resource
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INTRODUCTION
Potato is grown worldwide in more than 150 countries of the world as staple food including Nepal (Ezeta 2008).
Out of total agricultural land, potato cultivation is known to occupy about 6.47%which is about 199,971
hectares (ha) and the total production reached about of 2,805,582 tons (t) with average productivity of 14.03 t/ha
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in 2015/16 in Nepal (MESD 2017). Potato is grown from an altitude of about 100 meter mean above sea level
(masl) to 4000 masl in Nepal. Mostly the farming is subsistence type with small landholding of only 0.68 ha
(CBS 2013). The cultivation of potato is popular among smallholder farmers due to its wider adaptability, high
yield potential and demand. Thus becomes major sources of food, income and employment to many Nepali rural
farmers. The share of potato to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Agriculture Gross Domestic Product
(AGDP) were 2.17 and 6.57%, respectively (ABPSD 2015).
In Baglung, a mid-hill district, potato is cultivated in 1,665 ha of land with total production of 19,758 t and
productivity of 11.8 t/ha (DADO 2015). The two area of Baglung district known as Bobang Village
Development Committee (VDC) which is Dhorpatan Nagarpalika now and Tara VDC (now Tarakhola
54Resource efficiency for potato production by Sapkota and Bajracharya
Gaunpalika) are the major pocket sites of potato. In Bobang, potatoes are grown as a mono-crop, which is found
as a suitable place since viral degeneration generally occurs more slowly at higher altitudes and storage is much
less of a challenge (Dhital 2000).
Since agriculture practices generally involve mostly marginalized and smallholder farmers in Nepal, especially
in hills. Thus, it is likely that poor technical knowledge might be hindering the production and productivity due
to poor understanding about the efficient resource use. Here, efficiency of resource use is defined as the ability
to derive maximum output per unit of resource, which is the key to effectively address the challenges of
achieving food security, while ‘resource’ is stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can
be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively (Rahman and Lawal 2003). According
to Heady and Egbert (1964) the resources are said to be efficiently used, if the last unit of each resources yield
equal marginal productivity. Analysis of resource use efficiency helps to determine whether the resources are
overused or optimally used or underused. Inefficient use of resources increases the cost of production, thus
might resulting low return from potato production. The rapidly growing population resulting in speedy
urabnisation where agricultural lands being converted into residential buildings (Ishtiaque et al 2017) creating
huge demand of food. In respect to these relevant issues, only few studies have analyzed the efficiency of
resources use in agriculture focusing on farmers’ perception. Therefore, we aimed to elucidate the efficiency of
resources use pattern among marginalized farmers in hilly region of Nepal involved in potato production. It is
crucial to determine the level of production function as it helps and provides idea to manage the available
resources efficiently to increase the production and maximize return using existing resources.
METHODOLOGY
Sampling Techniques
The present survey was conducted in Baglung district, representing a hilly landscape almost in the middle of
Nepal in Central Himalayas, spreading from 83'E to 83'36"E and 28'15"N to 28'37"N. We selected two pocket
sites of potato production namely Bobang and Tara Village Development Committee (VDCs) of Baglung
District purposively (Figure 1). The potatoes produced in these locations are known for better taste, quality and
organic product (DADO 2015). A total of 120 samples (potato growing households) were selected randomly or
face-face interview method using semi structured questionnaire in the month April, 2016. The interview
schedule was pretested among six farmers of Bhankunde VDC of Baglung. The necessary corrections and
modifications were made in the questionnaire before its administration to actual respondents for the collection of
primary data. Data regarding on socio-demographic and economic aspects as well as the amount of resources
used in the production process were collected. Two focus group discussions were made to triangulate the data
obtained during field survey. The data were coded and necessary cleaning and missing data techniques were
employed during data entry to Statistical Packages of Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Descriptive analysis was
done using SPSS and regression analysis using Cobb-Douglas production function in Stata software was used to
determine resource use efficiency.
.
Figure 1. Map of Nepal and Baglung district showing the study sites. The shaded area represents the study sites
Estimation of Resource Use Efficiency
We used Cobb-Douglas production function to assess resource use efficiency following the methods mentioned
by Rahman and Lawal (2003).
55Resource efficiency for potato production by Sapkota and Bajracharya
Y=a
Where,
Y = Total return from potato production in Nepalese Rupees (NRs)
X1 = Total cost of seed used in potato production in NRs
X2 = Total cost of manure used in NRs
X3 = Total cost of labor used in NRs
X4 = Total cost of bullock used for tillage operations in NRs
X5 = Total cost of intercultural operations in potato field in NRs
a = Intercept
eu = Error term
b1, b2 …..b5 are the regression coefficients to be estimated. Both dependent and explanatory variables
were transformed to natural logarithm. The above equation was transformed to linear form for ease in
computation.
The level of resource use efficiency was calculated using following formula:
r = , Where,
r = Efficiency ratio
MVP = Marginal Value Product; which is the value of incremental unit of output resulting from the
additional unit of inputs.
MFC = Marginal Factor Cost which