Measurement of Farm Productivity of Rice: A Case of Bangladesh

The focus of this study is to assess rice production in the different category of farms in Bangladesh. The relevant data were collected from secondary source collected by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) under the Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia (VDSA) project. A total of 280, 318, 365 and 349 sample farmers were selected for the years of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively and the selected farmers were categorized into marginal, small, medium and large categories. Descriptive statistics were used to measure the profitability of rice production. In the study areas, rice farming was profitable for the selected years for all category of farmers but large and medium scale farmers received more profit than small and marginal farmers. Per hectare net return from rice production by small farmers was Tk.31324.28 in 2009 and Tk. 21776.97 in 2012 which provides a decreasing picture of profit for them. Cobb-Douglas stochastic cost frontier analysis was used to measure economic efficiencies. The regression result shows that estimated values of the relevant coefficients i.e., fertilizer cost, machinery cost, human labour cost, seed cost and herbicides cost had the positive and significant impact on the gross return of rice production and the coefficient of pesticide was negatively significant. So, there is a scope for increasing return from rice production by increasing human labour, seed, fertilizer, machinery and herbicide uses since the coefficients of these parameters were positive and significant. The study will help to policymakers for the development of all category rice farmers especially the small and marginal farmers of Bangladesh.