PG Thesis
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Item Economic analysis of rice group farming in Palakkad District of Kerala(Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture , Vellayani, 2025-02-22) Prabha, P P.; Smitha RevThe study entitled “Economic analysis of rice group farming in Palakkad district of Kerala" was conducted during 2024-25 at the Department of Agricultural Economics. The research aimed to evaluate the functioning and performance of Padasekhara Samithis, identify and quantify the transaction costs incurred at Padasekhara Samithi and at farmer level and identify the key challenges faced by the members of the Samithi. Padasekhara Samithis are collectives of paddy farmers established as a part of the group farming initiative of the Government of Kerala during the 1980s. These collectives, registered under the Charitable Society Act, operated based on bye-laws. The study was carried out in four grama panchayats of Palakkad district- Erimayur, Kizhakkanchery, Kuzhalmannam and Mathur covering 36 Padasekhara Samithis and 180 farmers. Primary data was collected through a well-structured, pretested interview schedule from the secretaries, farmer members and the Agricultural Officers (AOs). Secondary data was obtained from various offices of Department of Agriculture Development and Farmers’ Welfare in Palakkad district. The study analysed data pertaining to agricultural year 2022–23. The selected sample of Padasekhara Samithis had an average age of 30 years, with a mean group size of 69 members, covering approximately 32.79 hectares. Most secretaries and farmers were male, aged 60 or older and had at least 10 years of formal education. The average years of experience as a secretary was 18 with half of them serving for more than 15 years. The average size of landholding size of secretaries was 1.46 hectares compared to 0.96 hectares for farmers. The majority of both secretaries and farmers belonged to the marginal farmer category and relied primarily on agriculture for their livelihood. The study examined various aspects of Padasekhara Samithis including organisational structure, the roles and responsibilities of committee members, meetings conducted by them, election procedure, renewal processes and the financial assistance provided to these collectives. The access to information for Samithi members was analysed to determine the sources relied upon by the secretaries and farmer members for different types of information such as subsidies and government programs, Plant Protection Chemicals (PPCs) and price of paddy. The former two types of information were studied using a Social Network Analysis (SNA). The results indicated a low network density across the grama panchayats. Krishibhavans were identified as the primary source of information on subsidies and government programmes, while pesticide and herbicide dealers were the main sources for PPCs. Secretaries primarily served as intermediaries in the subsidies and government programs information network facilitating the flow of information between Krishibhavan and farmer members. Regarding the information on price of paddy, most of the respondents relied on newspapers. The performance of Padasekhara Samithis was assessed using a performance index which revealed that the Samithis were performing moderately. The identification of transaction cost incurred at Padasekhara Samithi and at farmer level revealed different components of information and decision making costs, contractual costs and monitoring and enforcement costs at the Padasekhara Samithi level and information and decision-making costs at farmer level. The transaction cost at Padasekhara Samithi level amounted to ₹552.29 per year per hectare with monitoring and enforcement costs accounting for 62.78 per cent of the total. Information and decision-making costs made up to 34.56 per cent, while contractual costs contributed 2.66 per cent. The high proportion of monitoring and enforcement costs was attributed to poor coordination among members. At the farmer level, transaction costs amounted to ₹481.68 per hectare per year. Further analysis revealed that transaction cost at the Padasekhara Samithi level was positively influenced by age of the Padasekhara Samithis, while the area of the Padasekharam and the number of years of education completed by the secretary had a negative influence on transaction cost. At the farmer level, transaction costs increased with the number of general body meetings attended by the farmer but decreased with the size of the farm. The challenges faced by the members of Padasekhara Samithi were ranked using Garrett’s ranking technique. The major constraints included shortage of labour followed by the lack of coordination among the members and absence of uniform cultivation and farming practices within the group. The study concluded that while Padasekhara Samithis were established to promote group farming, the complete adoption of group farming practices was not fully realised in the study area. The envisioned cooperation and coordination among members were poor. To address this, the study recommended training and capacity-building programmes to improve teamwork and make the members aware of the benefits of group farming. Moderate performance of the Samithis and low participation of executive members apart from the secretary highlighted the need for performance-based incentives and the equitable distribution of roles and responsibilities among committee members. Additionally, reliance on dealers for PPC related information and a shortage of labour were identified as significant challenges. To mitigate these issues, the study suggested encouraging members to utilise additional information sources such as Krishibhavans and Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) and establishing custom hiring centres for machinery and labour supportItem Soil carbon stock estimation and prediction of aggregate associated carbon under different land use systems in Palakkad central plain using reflectance spectroscopy(Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture , Vellanikkara, 2025-01-09) Abdul Hadi, K; Divya Vijayan, VThe distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) across various aggregates and its changes over time is crucial for monitoring carbon dynamics and optimising nutrient management. Reflectance spectroscopy is a fast, non-destructive and economical solution for estimating SOC in the soil. In this context, the present study was proposed to identify the potential of different land-use systems for the sequestration of SOC and distribution of SOC among various aggregates of selected land-use systems (LUS), where the selected aggregates were macroaggregate (> 0.25 mm), micro aggregate (0.25-0.053 mm) and clay and silt fraction (< 0.053 mm). It also aimed to evaluate the predictive potential of reflectance spectra for estimating SOC associated with soil aggregates. The study was conducted in the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, Vellanikkara during 2023-24. The selected land use systems were natural forest, coconut plantation, rubber plantation, vegetable field, and paddy field, in the Palakkad Central Plain (AEU 22). Georeferenced surface (sample no. = 9), subsurface soil samples (sample no. = 9) and one profile sample were collected from each land use system. A total of 105 samples were collected. The soil samples were pre-processed and analysed for the different physico-chemical properties, wet aggregate analysis, soil carbon stock (SCS) and SOC in aggregate fraction. A part of the macroaggregates and microaggregates obtained from wet sieving was utilised to record the spectral signatures. Prediction models were then developed using the SOC content of these aggregates as the dependent variable, while the spectroscopic bands corresponding to each aggregate type served as the independent variables. The raw spectra obtained from the spectroradiometer underwent four preprocessing steps viz logarithmic transformation, Savitzky-Golay filtering (SG), first-order derivative (FOD), and second-order derivative (SOD) before model development. Correlation analyses were then performed to identify the most relevant wavebands associated with SOC. It reduced the number of bands needed for modelling. The prediction of aggregate-associated SOC was performed using a Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) model. The efficiency of developed models was analysed using the coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), and the ratio of prediction deviation (RPD). The subset prediction models were also developed to identify which region is best for prediction. Finally, the variable importance in the projection score (VIP) was used to find which wavelengths are contributing the most of the variance in the PLSR model. The result showed that the perennial systems such as forest (47.95 Mg ha-1) and rubber (43.08 Mg ha-1) showed higher soil carbon stock. In contrast, annual cropping systems like paddy (SCS = 16.55 Mg ha-1) and vegetable (SCS = 19.14 Mg ha-1) exhibited lower soil carbon stock. The distribution of water-stable aggregates revealed that greater proportion of macroaggregates in rubber (96.05 %) and forest systems (95.18%), followed by coconut (83.12 %). Lower aggregate fractions, including microaggregates and clay-silt fractions, were more abundant in paddy (micro aggregate = 30.72 %; clay and silt fraction = 2.29 %) and vegetable fields (micro aggregate = 26.60 %; clay and silt fraction = 2.53 %). Mean weight diameter was highest in forest (2.65 mm) and rubber systems (2.44 mm) and lowest in paddy (0.73 mm) and vegetable systems (0.99 mm). These findings suggest that intensive tillage and lower SOC levels significantly degraded soil structure. The key spectral bands for predicting bulk SOC spanned the entire spectrum (400–2500 nm), whereas bands relevant to aggregate-associated SOC were primarily located in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) region (1000–2500 nm). These findings indicate that bulk SOC predictions were more influenced by the chromophore effect, while aggregate SOC predictions depended on chemical bonds in specific spectral regions. The preprocessing steps influenced the prediction ability of the model. second-order derivatives (SOD) produced the best models for the prediction of microaggregate SOC (MiSOC) and macroaggregate SOC (MaSOC), while Savitzky Golay-filtered full spectra were most effective for bulk soil SOC. Prediction accuracy was higher for MiSOC (R² = 0.84, RMSE = 0.25, RPD = 2.21) compared to MaSOC (R² = 0.92, RMSE = 0.25, RPD = 1.74). The R2 value of the test dataset further validated the prediction efficiency of the model. The R2 value of the test dataset were 0.79, 0.66, and 0.84 for MiSOC, MaSOC, and bulk soil SOC, respectively. The superior predictive performance for MiSOC can be attributed to the higher organic carbon content in microaggregates and the difference in the type of organic functional groups between the two fractions. The result shows that spectroscopy can be effectively exploited for the prediction of aggregate-associated carbonItem Economic analysis of seed production of select vegetables in Palakkad district(Department Of Agricultural Economics, College Of Agriculture , Vellanikkara, 2023-05-25) Anupama Rajeevan; Chitra ParayilSeed is regarded as the critical input in agriculture for increasing and sustaining agricultural production. It is estimated that the quality of seed accounts for 20-25 per cent of productivity (Anonymous, 2013). Use of quality seed is of utmost importance in order to realize the maximum utilization of other inputs viz., fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides and other improved agronomic practices. Quality and timely seed supplies are vital in maintaining vegetable production as well as availability for ensuring food security in developing countries. The production of vegetables has been touching new records every year, making it the most favoured agricultural commodity. Vegetable production during 2017-18 recorded an increase to 184 million tonnes from 10.3 million ha area, whereas it was less than 20 million tonnes during the period of independence. This manifold increase needs to be made consistent to meet the demand of 1.5 billion people by 2030 which could be attained by proper and timely utilization of different inputs involved in crop production (Mohan et al., 2022). Therefore, quality seed production plays a major role in Indian agriculture by providing food, nutritional and economic security and more importantly, producing higher returns per unit area and time. The study was based on primary data collected from VFPCK vegetable seed farmers of Chittur and Nenmara blocks of Palakkad district owing to their highest number in the respective blocks. The crops selected for the study were bitter gourd, snake gourd, ash gourd and pumpkin due to their higher proportion in area and production to the total vegetables in the study area. A total of 52 sample respondents each were randomly selected for bitter gourd and snake gourd and 40 each were selected for ash gourd and pumpkin. This accounted to a total sample size of 184 seed farmers from the study area. The cost of cultivation for seed production of four vegetables were worked out using tabular and percentage analysis. Human labour accounted for the highest percentage (50.9 in bitter gourd, 50.25 in snake gourd, 37.02 in ash gourd and 32.25 in pumpkin) to total cost in all the selected vegetables. The total cost of cultivation was found to be highest in bitter gourd with ₹2,70,669ha-1 followed by snake gourd (₹2,57,343ha-1), ash gourd (₹1,58,813ha-1) and pumpkin (₹1,45,621ha-1). The benefit cost ratios were found to be stable with 2.55 for bitter gourd, 2.24 for snake gourd, 1.96 for ash gourd and 2.02 for pumpkin. Also, the major operational cost in seed production for the four crops was found in manure application followed by fertilizer application and land preparation. The determinants of production of quality seeds were analyzed using multiple linear regression where the seed yield was regressed with the different parameters like fertilizers, manures, plant protection, human labour and experience of the farmer. In bitter gourd, manures, plant protection and experience of the farmer were found as the major determinants of quality seed production while in snake gourd it was manures, fertilizers and experience of the farmer. Fertilizers, human labour and experience of the farmer were found to affect the quality seed production in ash gourd. Besides these, fertilizers and experience of the farmer were found to contribute to production of quality seeds in pumpkin. The efficiency of the inputs involved in the seed production of the vegetables under study were analysed using Cobb-Douglas production function and quantity of manures and fertilizers were found to significantly influence the seed yield in bitter gourd and snake gourd. The ratio of MVP to MFC for manures and fertilizers in bitter gourd was found to be 0.70 and 0.58 respectively while in snake gourd it was 0.75 and 0.71 respectively which indicated the overutilization of the resources. In ash gourd and pumpkin, fertilizer was found to be the factor significantly influencing the seed yield with a value of 0.75 and 0.61 respectively indicating overutilization of the resource. The analysis of the constraints in seed production of the vegetables was done using Garrett ranking technique. The major constraint identified which limited the seed production in the selected vegetables in the area was climatic variability followed by the incidence of pests and diseases where mosaic was identified as the major disease and fruit fly as the major pest. The requirement of a higher isolation distance was also another factor that constrained the seed production of the selected vegetables in the study area. It can thus be concluded that the development of climate resilient and pest and disease tolerant varieties would help the farmers to reap higher benefits by overcoming the vagaries of weather and challenge of pests and diseases incidence. Also, the development of high yielding variety seeds should be taken up in order to reduce the use of hybrid seeds which are popular among the farmers currently and are relatively costlier, thus the cost of cultivation of vegetables could be brought down sizably.