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Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] is one of the most essential food
which is extensively adapted, stress tolerant grain legume, vegetable, and fodder crop.
Kerala is striving to move towards self-sufficiency in vegetables and in this context, the
timely availability of quality seed is gaining importance. Plant types are often
categorized as trailing and semi trailing varieties. The varieties selected for the study
were Vellayani Jyothika which is of trailing type, Anaswara, which is a semi-trailing
variety (both for seed purpose) and Arka Mangala which is of trailing type was selected
for comparison between seed and vegetable production.
The two blocks selected for the study were Nenmara and Chittur because
these blocks had maximum number of registered farmers. The registered farmers under
VFPCK’s seed production of cowpea were selected for the study. From the list of
registered farmers, farmers growing both vegetable and seed cowpea with at least 50
cents area were selected at random. Twenty farmers were selected from Nenmara block
and 60 farmers were selected from Chittur block in proportion to the area of seed
production undertaken by VFPCK in the respective blocks.
The results of the study are as follows. The distribution of respondents
based on age showed that majority of cowpea seed farmers fall under 50-60 years age
group. It was observed that the farmers who had secondary school education fell in this
category. Majority of the respondents were in the medium-sized family category (4-6
members). The findings support the fact that joint families are on a decline. It was
observed that respondents had about 25-30 years’ experience in seed production of
cowpea. The results showed that they were mostly small holding farmers (1-2 ha) who
are involved in cow pea seed production.
The growth rate of area and production for vegetables in Kerala were
negative -0.26 per cent and -0.14 per cent respectively, while the growth rate for
productivity was positive (0.85%) and was found to be significant. This indicates that there
has been a significant increase in the productivity of vegetables in Kerala due to the
introduction of HYVs during this period (1991-2018).
It was found that the cost of cultivation for Anaswara (Rs.148386.8 ha
-1
),
Vellayani Jyothika (Rs. 164065.4 ha
-1
) were high in Chittur and for Arka Mangala
varieties (Rs.119991 ha
-1
) was high in Nenmara. The reason was a marginal increase in
the wage rate in Chittur compared to Nenmara. Anaswara (Rs. 235015 ha-1) and
Vellayani Jyothika (Rs. 383925 ha-1) yielded higher in Chittur compared to Nenmara.
The B:C ratio for the varieties were Vellayani Jyothika (2.36) which is high in Chittur,
followed by Anaswara (1.58), it was high in Nenmara and for Arka Mangala it was 1.60,
which were same in both the blocks. The findings indicate that Vellayani Jyothika variety
had high procurement price of seed, high returns and higher B:C ratio. The returns to
scale was also greater than one i.e. 1.29, indicating increasing returns to scale in cowpea.
Cobb-Douglas production function was fitted to estimate the resource use
efficiency in Cowpea and it was found that quantity of labour contributed significantly
towards the increase in the yield. Marginal productivity analysis was carried out and it
was found that the k ratio (MVP/MFC) for the resources, quantity of labour and quantity
of manures and fertilizers were found to be greater than one. This indicated sub-optimal
utilization of these resources. The k-value for rouging (man days/ha) and quantity of
plant protection chemicals were found to be less than one, which indicates excess
utilization of the above resources.
The results of linear regression to understand the factors affecting availability
of seed to vegetable farmers in general are pests and diseases attack and costs of
production of different cowpea varieties. High cost of input seed and limited returns from
vegetable cowpea are the major constraints faced by the cowpea farmers. Since the
procurement prices of seeds have been recently revised, it can be concluded that seed
production in cowpea is highly remunerative, given the increasing demand for quality
seeds in vegetables. Thus cowpea seed production can be seen as a profitable venture in
order to proceed towards the path to self-sufficiency in vegetables in our state.