Chickpea: Study on cost of cultivation and profit measures in Auraiya Dist. of western UP

Chickpea is one of the important crop in U.P. as well as, in India. World-wide India ranks 1st in production of chickpea. In India, the total food production in 2013-14 was about 257.4 million tones out of these only 19.3 million tones was contributed by pulses. The production of cereals increase by 460 per cent since 1950-51 to give the year but the production of pulses in the country has increased only 178 per cent. There is acute shortage of pulses in the country. The prices have increased considerably and the consumer is hard hit to buy his pulse requirements. Thus the availability of pulse per capita per day has proportionately decline from 71g (1955) to 36.9g (1998) against the minimum requirement of 70g per capita per day. District Auraiya was purposively selected and the block Auraiya Sadar having highest acreage under chickpea was selected purposively for the study. List of the villages from selected block were prepared along with acreage under Chickpea cultivation and 5 villages were selected randomly for study. In all 100 number of farmers were selected proportionally from each category of farmers and classified into three categories i.e. marginal (below 1 ha), small (1-2 ha) and medium (2-4 ha & above). The data were collected by personal interview technique with the help of pre-tested structured schedule. The period of enquiry pertain to the agricultural year 2017-18. Overall average, cost of cultivation was estimated rupees 27819.43, in the study area. Per hectare cost of cultivation shows positive relation with size of holding as it was found maximum on medium farms (Rs. 29536.05). Overall average, cost of production was estimated Rs. 2467.42 in the study area. Overall average, input-output ratio came to 1:2.46 to 1:1.53 on the basis of cost-A and cost-C. Overall average, net income and gross income found Rs. 14760.57 and Rs.42580.00 in the study area. It is inferred that chickpea cultivation is suitable for upgrading food security mission of India, as well as, suitable for doubling the income of farmers in the study area.