Measures of Resource Use Efficiency and Constraints of Mentha Crop Production in Ambedkar Nagar District of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

The present study highlights resource use efficiency and constraints of Mentha crop production in Ambedkar Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This research was conducted in the Ambedkar Nagar District of Uttar Pradesh to assess the resource use efficiency and identify challenges in Mentha cultivation. A multistage stratified sampling method, incorporating purposive and random sampling technique, was employed to select the study area including the district, block, villages, and farmers. Specifically, the Akbarpur block was chosen, from which, five villages were selected. Using proportionate allocation, a total of 100 Mentha growers were surveyed. Primary data were collected through personal interviews, using a pre-structured and pre-tested survey schedule. To analyze the data, employed the Cobb-Douglas production function, which helped estimate the impact of various factors on production. The regression analysis indicated that farmers were in the second stage of production, characterized by decreasing returns to scale. Key factors such as human labor, manure and fertilizer, seed costs expenses, irrigation and machinery expenses accounted for etc, explained 77.00%, 79.00% and 83.00% for the variation in production for marginal, small, and medium farms, respectively. We identified several constraints faced by menthe growers, where major problems are high input cost of mentha cultivation with garret score 75.18, lack of quality seed with garret score 58.63, lack of credit availability with garret score 55.07 and lack of new technology with garret score 54.25. These insights underline the critical areas that need attention to improve Mentha cultivation efficiency and support the farmers for overcoming these obstacles.