An economic analysis of winter vegetables production in some selected areas of Narsingdi district

The present study was designed to assess the comparative profitability of selected winter vegetables: namely tomato, cauliflower and cabbage. In total, 90 farmers (30 each growing tomato, cauliflower and cabbage) were randomly selected from two villages under Shibpur Upazila in Narsingdi district. Both tabular and quantitative analyses were done to achieve the major objectives of the study. The major findings of the study revealed that production of all the selected vegetables were profitable. The per hectare gross cost of production of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were Tk. 118000, 116977 and 120522, respectively and the corresponding gross returns were Tk. 217020, 210000 and 220000, respectively. The per hectare net returns of producing tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were Tk. 97000, 93023 and 99478, respectively. In other words, all the selected winter vegetables were highly profitable to the farmers. However, the farmers earned the highest profit from cabbage. The revenue type Cobb-Douglas production function analysis indicated that per hectare gross returns were significantly influenced by the use of human labour, tillage, seeds, fertilizers, irrigation and insecticides. These factors were directly or jointly responsible for influencing the per hectare gross returns of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage. The study reported some problems and constraints which are related to production and marketing of these vegetables. Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations were made to improve cultural and management practices for selected winter vegetables farming with a view to increase the income and employment opportunities of the farmers.


Introduction
Vegetables sub-sector plays an important role for development of Bangladesh.Vegetables are a herbaceous plant whose fruits, seeds, roots, tubers, leaves etc., are used as food.Nearly 100 different types of vegetables comprising both of local and foreign origins are grown in Bangladesh.Vegetable is important for nutrition, economy and food security.Vegetables can be identified as a significant one for this economy for its noteworthy contribution in raising the foreign exchange earnings and occupies an important position among the items exported from Bangladesh.Vegetables contribute 3.2% of the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (BBS, 2009).Bangladesh earned US $ 41.11 million from export of agricultural products in [2003][2004], which contributed 0.54% to total export earnings (BER, 2008).
As a developing country, Bangladesh is adequately suffering from the problems of poverty, unemployment and malnutrition.Vegetable sub-sector can play important role to solve these problems in the shortest possible time.The importance of vegetable can be realized from two stand points such as, economic point of view and nutritional point of view.It creates a great opportunity of employment for the large number of unemployed women of Bangladesh.
Vegetables compared to other food items provide low cost nutrition source.It can be produced even small amount of land and also in homestead area.It can be grown within a short time period and more than one crop can be grown within a crop season.There are a large number of vegetables having different varieties, which can be grown throughout the year.However, the largest numbers of vegetables are grown in the winter season.Vegetables are generally labour intensive crops and thus offer a considerable promise for generating increased rural employment opportunities.Climate and soil of Bangladesh is very much suitable for growing vegetables round the year.
A good number of studies (Ahmed, 2001;Akhter, 2006;Chowdhury, 1996;Hossain, 1997;Islam, 2000;Mowla, 1998;Sultana, 2005;Naher, 1998) were also being conducted which are related to costs and returns of different vegetables including tomato, cauliflower and cabbage.However, very few economic studies have so far been reported in Shibpur Upazila of Narsingdi district where vegetables are being grown in abundance.The present study would have important information regarding vegetables production in Shibpur Upazila of Narsingdi district.The present study aims to assess the comparative profitability of the selected winter vegetables production.

Materials and Methods
Due to limitation of time and resources, a small area with uniform topographical and ecological characteristics was considered as study area.Keeping in mind the main objective, two villages namely Vogorcandi and Chorsujapur of Putia Bazar Union under Shibpur upazila in Narsingdi district were purposively selected for the study.Survey method was applied to collect the data and the study period was July to September, 2009.In total 90 samples were randomly selected (30 from each vegetable).Data were collected by comprehensive interview schedules.In this study, simple profit equation was used for calculating profitability of the said vegetables.The profit function is as follows: Π=∑P1iQ1i -TC Where, P1i= Price of main product Q1i= Quantity of main products TC= Total Cost Simple statistical techniques as well as Cobb-Douglas production function were used to process and analyze the data to achieve the goals of the study.

Specific model is as follows
Seven variables were hypothesized to explain the production of selected winter vegetables.The Cobb-Douglas production function analysis was used to determine the effect of these inputs.The model was specified comprehensively in such way that it can specify adequately the production process of the vegetables.
The selected Cobb-Douglas production function model (Gujarati, 2003), in its stochastic form may be expressed as: The function was linearized by transforming it into the following double log or log-linear form i.e.Regression co-efficient to be estimated and u i = Error term.

Profitability of vegetables production
In order to determine the cost of purchased inputs, prevailing market price was used and for that of home supplied inputs the opportunity cost considered.The bank rate of 8 percent per annum was used to determine the opportunity cost of operating capital.In the production process human labour was the most important factor.On an average per hectare human labour required for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were 511, 445 and 467 man-days, respectively.The per hectare costs of human labour for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were Tk.61320, 53400 and 56040, respectively, which covered 51.96, 45.65 and 46.51% of the total cost respectively.

Factors affecting gross return of vegetables production
Cobb-Douglas Production Function model was applied on the basis of the best-fit and significant effects of resources on gross returns.For all the enterprises seven explanatory variables were taken into account to explain variations in production.Some of the key variables are explained below.
Human labour cost (X 1 ): It is observed from the Cobb-Douglas production function that the production coefficient of human labour cost of cauliflower production was significant at one percent level of significance.It implies that one percent increase of human labour, keeping other factors constant, would increase the gross return by 0.354 percent (Table 4).
Tillage cost (X 2 ): The coefficient of tillage cost of cauliflower production was 0.30 with a positive sign.It was significant at one percent probability level which implies that one percent increase of tillage cost of cauliflower production, keeping other factors constant, would lead to an increase in the gross return by 0.30 percent (Table 4).
Tillage cost (X 2 ): The magnitude of the regression coefficient of tillage cost for cabbage was 0.568 with a positive sign.This coefficient was significant at one percent probability level.It implies that one percent increase of tillage cost of cabbage production, keeping other factors constant, would lead to an increase in the gross return by 0.568 percent (Table 4).
Seedling cost (X 3 ): The magnitude of the regression coefficient of seedling cost for cabbage was 0.19 with a negative sign.This coefficient was significant at one percent probability level.It implies that one percent increase of seedling cost of cabbage production, keeping other factors constant, would lead to a decrease in the gross return by 0.19 percent (Table 4).
Fertilizer cost (X 4 ): The regression coefficient of fertilizer cost for cabbage was 0.091.It was positive and was significant at one percent probability level.This indicates that an increase in one percent of fertilizer cost of cabbage production, remaining other factors constant, would result in an increase in the gross return by 0.091 percent (Table 4).
Manure cost (X 5 ): The regression coefficient of manure cost of tomato production was 1.068 (Table 4).This coefficient was significant at one percent level of significance.It implies that one percent increase of manure cost, keeping other factors constant, would lead to an increase in the gross return by 1.068 percent.The coefficients of multiple determinations, R 2 were 0.87, 0.79 and 0.89 in case of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production function respectively.These indicated that 87%, 79% and 89% of the variation of output of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were explained by the explanatory variables included in the models.11.278 and 26.265) of the equation were significant at one percent probability level, which indicated good fit of the 3 models.The summations of the estimated coefficient were 0.571, 0.654 and 0.668 which implied decreasing returns to scale and the enterprises were operating in the second stage of production functions of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage respectively.
In the study areas selected winter vegetable farmers faced various types of problems like, lack of capital, inadequate supply of good quality seeds, unavailability and high price of insecticides, high prices of fertilizers, loss of production due to theft, inadequate storage facilities, lack of marketing facilities, lack of price information of the market, etc.

Conclusion and Recommendations
All the selected vegetables were found to be profitable but cabbage was relatively more profitable than those of tomato and cauliflower.Per hectare yield and gross returns of cabbage were higher than those of tomato and cauliflower.Moreover, gross margin as well as net return of cabbage was higher than those of tomato and cauliflower.There are remarkable variations in input use particularly manure, human labour, tillage, fertilizer, etc. and other practices in the study areas.Most of the farmers did not follow the recommended doses of input use except human labour, tillage, fertilizer and manure.In addition to that farmers need good quality seed to grow better vegetables.Go and NGO can take care of it.Finally, government should come forward to address the problems and constraints of the vegetables farmers and try to solve those in time.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Gross returns, gross cost, gross margin and net return of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production

Table 1 . Operation wise per hectare human labour cost (Tk.) of different enterprises
Animal labour was used mainly for preparing land.For tomato, cauliflower and cabbage cultivation, the cost of animal power were Tk.1800, 1440 and 1620, respectively.In the study areas, farmers also used power tiller.The per hectare power tiller cost for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were Tk.5880, Tk. 4500 and Tk.6000 covering 4.98, 3.85 and 4.98 percent of total cost, respectively.The per hectare seedling costs for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage were Tk.5250, Tk. 14350 and Tk.15600, respectively.The cost of seed constituted 4.45, 12.27 and 12.94% of total cost of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production, respectively.Fertilizer is a major requirement of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production.In the study areas, farmers mainly used four types of fertilizer namely Urea, TSP, MP and Gypsum.The per hectare cost of these fertilizers were calculated at Tk. 18021, Tk. 18790 and Tk.155110 which shared 15.90, 16.05 and 12.53% of total cost for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage, respectively.Per hectare cost of manure amounted to be Tk.6350, 5660 and 5880 for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production.The per hectare cost of irrigation water amounted to Tk. 4500, Tk. 5000 and Tk.5500 for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production, which represented 3.81, 4.27 and 4.56 percent of their respective total cost, respectively.

returns, gross cost, gross margin and net return of tomato, cauluflower and cabbage production
Per hectare cost of insecticides amounted Tk. 4800, 3100 and 4000 for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production, which occupied 4.10, 2.65 and 3.32 percent of their respective total cost.The land use cost per hectare was Tk. 9000 for tomato production and Tk.9675 for cauliflower and Tk.9675 for cabbage production.Land use cost covered 7.63, 8.27 and 8.03% of total cost of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production, respectively.Per hectare interest on operating capital was Tk. 1079, Tk. 1062 and Tk.1097, for tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production, respectively.

Table 3 . Per hectare costs and returns of producing tomato cauliflower and cabbage
118000, Tk. 116977 and Tk.120522, respectively.Per hectare gross margin of selected vegetables was Tk. 107079, Tk. 103760 and Tk.110250.Per hectare net return of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production was Tk. 97000, Tk. 93023 and Tk.99478, respectively.Undiscounted benefit cost ratio of tomato, cauliflower and cabbage production per hectare came out to be 1.82, 1.79 and 1.83 respectively.