Cost and income structure of wheat cultivation in Vindhyan Plateau of Madhya Pradesh

The present study has been made to work out the cost of cultivation, profitability and production as well as marketing constraints of wheat cultivation faced by farmers. The primary data were collected from 105 sample respondents (40 small, 40 medium and 25 large) through pre-tested interview schedule. The cost of cultivation was found to be highest on large farm ( 29379.88/ha) as compared to medium farm ( 26155.99/ha) and small farm ( 21942.80/ha). The gross income received from wheat cultivation was to be 50166.54 per hectare on overall farms, while gross income was found to be maximum in case of large farm ( 55817.55/ha) followed by medium farm ( 50191.20/ha) and small farm ( 44490.87/ha). The net income, farm business income, family labour income and farm investment income were found to be 24340.32, 35779.93, 27969.70 and 34498.43 per hectare, respectively on overall farms. The benefit cost ratio was to be highest on small farm (1:2.027) as compared to medium (1:1.918) and large farm (1:1.899). The wheat cultivators reported that potential yield could not be achieved due to various production constraints viz. lack of soil testing facilities, lack of knowledge of plant protection measures, lack of knowledge of recommended package of practices, unavailability of hired human labour, irregularity of electricity supply, lack of capital, lack of proper training, disease problems, unavailability of high yielding variety seed and unavailability of fertilizers at operation period.