Economics of Paddy Cultivation in Thamirabarani River Basin of Tamil Nadu, India

The study was designed with the main objective of estimating the costs involved in Rice cultivation and returns from Rice production in selected villages of Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu. A multistage random sampling technique was employed to obtain primary data from the study area. Out of the 14 blocks in the Thoothukudi district, Karungulam block was selected, wherein two villages namely Vasavapuram and Vallanadu were selected purposively considering the area of Rice cultivation. From each of the selected villages, 40 farmers were selected randomly. For the study, a total of 80 farmers were chosen. The CACP (Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices) cost concept has been used for the analysis. The major findings of this study revealed that per hectare, the cost of cultivation of paddy was calculated as Rs. 77,394.05. The major variables of cost were Human labour (26.11 per cent), the rental value of owned land (17.73 per cent), fertiliser (16.17) followed by Machine labour (15.74). The percentage of cost A and cost B in the total cost of cultivation was 85.47 and 89.13 per cent, respectively. The net return realized from paddy cultivation was Rs.48,320.84. The benefit-cost ratio was 1.62 indicating rice cultivation is economically profitable in the study area.