Economics of natural and conventional crop production systems in Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

The introduction of green revolution has led to indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides in order to newlinemaximise production hence making the soil dead. Moreover, increasing costs of chemical fertilizers and newlinepesticides led to farmers indebtedness and their suicides. Therefore in mid 1990s natural farming (NF) was newlineintroduced where nothing has to be purchased from outside. Himachal Pradesh (HP) is one of the states in India newlinewhere there is less use of agro- chemicals and has the potential to follow natural farming. Hence, the present newlinestudy Economics of natural and conventional crop production systems in Himachal Pradesh was carried out in newlineHP. Two stage random sampling technique was used for the selection of blocks and farmers. Zone-I and Zone-II newlinewere selected purposively and 160 farmers practising natural crop production and conventional crop production newlinewere interviewed. Secondary data revealed that Chamba covered the highest area (391.38 ha) under NF and newlineLahaul spiti the least (19.16 ha). Kangra had the highest number of farming families (13386 nos) that received newlinetraining for NF. Primary data revealed that during Kharif season combination of Maize+pulses+oilseeds newline(M+P+O) (26 %) covered the maximum area in Zone-I and Maize+pulses (M+P) (9.739%) in Zone-II. During newlineRabi season, Wheat+ pulses (W+P) covered the maximum area in Zone-I (56%) and Zone-II (39%). The highest newlinecost incurred during Kharif season was for M+O+V in Zone-I and Zone-II i.e., Rs.67711 and Rs. 66593, newlinerespectively During Rabi season maximum cost was incurred for V+P in Zone-II and Zone-I i.e., Rs.143380 newlineand Rs. 142931, respectively. Under conventional farming (CF) in Kharif season the total variable cost incurred newlinein the cultivation of maize was Rs. 43605 in Zone-I and Rs. 43252 in Zone-II. The Crop Equivalent Yield newline(CEY) in the NF system was higher than the CF system for all crop combinations. In Kharif season M+O+V newlineresulted in maximum returns with net return of Rs. 150322 followed by M+P+O (Rs. 102907) in Zone-I. In newlineZone-II,