An economic analysis of farm mechanization in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

The study was undertaken in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu, India with a comparison of owned and hired machine labour. Yield, input cost, crop income and off-farm income of own farms showed an increase of 19.37 per cent, 15.66 per cent, 17.83 and 321.37 per cent over hired farms respectively. The breakeven point for thresher was highest with 2496.57 hrs/ annum. Partial budgeting showed that all machineries have net gain. The determinants of mechanization included human labour cost and input cost for own farms and human labour cost, input cost and productivity for hired farms. The existing plan included crops of Paddy, Sugarcane and Groundnut with a net income of Rs. 138320/ha. The income realized in the optimal plan was 45.99 per cent higher as compared to the existing plan. Mechanization could be adopted by the farmers since all the machineries resulted in higher income and higher net gain.