Economic Analysis and Farmer's Response of Drip Irrigation Systems in Banana Fields of Guntur district

摘要

The major crop cultivated in study area is banana, due to its age old traditional cultivation and also good market demand in the region. Andhra Pradesh state has pioneered in installing drip irrigation systems in farmers' fields through government subsidy schemes.. The authors strongly feel that the system design accuracy play a vital role in terms of energy saving, long life of pipe material and equipment. Farmer's satisfaction is also of paramount importance and the system performance and post maintenance aspects shouid be felt as research component too. Hence 40 farmers growing banana crop were identified from Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh state, whose fields were installed with drip system by various micro irrigation companies. Besides collecting the field technical parameters for checking the designs, a special questionnaire is prepared and the farmers were interviewed thoroughly for their response on drip irrigation system performance for banana crop which is reported in this paper alongwith brief benefit-cost analysis. The overall information on the drip systems for banana cultivation prove that it is very beneficial to the farmers in saving of fertilizers, water, electricity and labor costs. The drip system improves the quantity and quality of the produce by minimizing the cost of cultivation. The lowest price of banana of Rs.3500/- per tone is considered to calculated of benefit cost ratio. Even at this price farmers are getting Rs. 25,000/- to Rs. 60,000/- as profit per acre. The expenditure of the installed drip irrigation could be recovered with in 2 years. The benefit cost ratio of the forty farmers ranging 0.355 to 0.750.