Comparative economics of Banana cultivation in Anand district of Gujarat

The comparative economics of banana cultivation under drip and conventional irrigation methods was studied by collecting data from 60 drip farms and 60 non-drip farms of Anand district during 2009–10. Though the investment on drip irrigation system for banana crop was expensive ( 84115/ha), the total cost of cultivation in drip farms ( 150098/ha) was slightly less than that in non-drip farms ( 151735/ha). The yield (13.94 per cent) and net profit (52.76 per cent) of banana in drip farms were higher as compared to non-drip farms. Input-Output ratio over cost-c2 under drip and flood method of irrigation was 2.10 and 1.71, respectively. The Cobb-Douglas production function was employed to establish the input-output relationship. The sum of regression co-efficient (Σbi's) was 1.072 and 1.109 for non-drip and drip banana farms, respectively indicating increasing return to scale. MVP/FC ratios were also worked out to examine the resource use efficiency more reliably. It was found that the resources viz, plantlets (tissue culture), irrigation and area were underutilized in drip farms indicating these inputs were not optimum in context to other inputs in order to get maximum profit and therefore, there is yet some scope to increase productivity in the study area of drip farms of banana.