CAPITAL STRUCTURE AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY OF SUGARCANE BASED FARMING IN SAHARANPUR DISTRICT OF WESTERN U.P.

Abstract

The Indian economy is predominantly an agricultural economy. Despite the decline in the relative share of agriculture in GDP (32.%, in 1987-88 as compared to 56.5% in 1950-51), due to undergoing structural transformation as a result of economic development programmes, it still provides livelihood to an overwhelming majority of the Indian population. As a matter of fact, while approximately 70 percent of the population is still engaged in agriculture, more than 80 percent of the people in rural India, are directly dependent upon this sector. Agriculture also contributes a sizable part of exports and constitutes a considerable proportion of imports too. Thus, India's development in general and rural development in particular, is by and large determined by the pace and direction of agricultural development. This phenomena had been realised by the policy makers long back which resulted in teh commencement of green revolution programmes in 1966. Since then the country started moving closer to accomplishing the goal of complete self sufficiency in the food production. The implementation of green revolution programmes in the initial stage, however, was not simple one. Its success could only be ensured by the well coordinated combined efforts of the agricultural scientists community workers and above all the central and state governments. It was really very difficult (viii) to persuade the illierated farmers to switch over to altogether unconventional methods of cultivation etc. in the initial stage. Nevertheless, the states (especially Punjab, Haryana and Western part Of U.P.J, where the programmes were executed with missionary zeals and which also had access to the more or less assured means of irrigation moved ahead of others, leading to the percolation of comparatively larger benefits to them. Farmer's response had also made a great deal of difference in this connection. In the initial stage, great thrust was laid, as has already been pointed out, on attaining self-reliance in the production of food grains. It was, in fact, a logical consequence of the frequent droughts and discontinance of food aid in the event of Indo-Pak war in 1965, acute shortage of foreign exchange to import the required quantum of food grains etc. Little planned and serious efforts have, however, been made to cover non-cereal items namely oilseeds, pulses etc., under the green revolution curriculum even till the decade of 1980. This has led to the uneven growth of production in agricultural sector. Inspite of these pitfalls, it has, undoubtedly, revolutionalised the production and productivity which was made possible through radical, transformation in the farmer's attitude, capital structure and through the application of better techniques and improved inputs. The present attempt is an endeavour. towards evaluation of the rationality of farmers' behaviour in the . (ix) use of capital and other inputs in the production process. The work has been done on the case study basis encompassing Saharanpur district of the state of Uttar Pradesh. This district is regarded as one of the principal beneficiaries of the green revolution. With the given objectives of the study, Cobb-Douglas production function has been used. The main focus of the study begins with the analysis of capital structure and resource use efficiency in the agricultural sector proceeded by marginal productivity and output-input analysis. The study includes three main crops- sugarcane, wheat and paddy. It has revealed that the behaviour of all categories of farmers have not been rational in the matter of use of inputs leading to less than the optimum level of production. It also highlights the fact that the highest net returns have been generatd by the sugarcane. The popular view that the resource use efficiency has inverse relationship with the size of holdings has not been corroborated by the findings. It is expected that this study, in its final analysis, will turn out to be helpful to the planners and policy makers.