RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY OF BASMATI RICE CULTIVATION IN GURDASPUR DISTRICT OF PUNJAB

The present study was undertaken to estimate the resource use efficiency for basmati rice, of different category of farms during 2010-11 in the Gurdaspur district (which is one of the leading basmati rice producer) of Punjab state. The technical efficiency on the sample farms, was estimated using Cobb-Douglas production function which showed that production of basmati was positively related to the farm size as the regression coefficient of farm size came to be positive and significant. The frontier production function indicated that all the factors of production were used at levels higher than frontier level by all the farm size categories and that the existing level of production could be achieved by reducing the input use by 18.24, 20.98, 25.38, 27.06 and 27.99 per cent on marginal, small, semi-medium, medium and large farms respectively. The overall mean level of technical efficiency in utilizing farm resources indicated that there is a direct relationship between technical efficiency and the farm size.