Resource Productivity, Resource Use Efficiency and Return to Scale of Small, Medium and Large Rabi Jowar Growers in Marathwada Region

The study attempts to examine the resource productivity, resource use efficiency and return to scale of the small, medium and large sized Rabi jowar growers in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra state. A sample of 120 growers was selected through multistage sampling technique from Parbhani and Beed districts for Rabi jowar season 2009-10. Growers were categorized on the basis of land holding into small (30), medium (50) and large (40) growers. Cobb Douglas production function approach was used to measure the resource productivity, resource use efficiency and return to scale by calculating and comparing Marginal value products (MVPs) and MVP to factor price. Results depicted that on small farms only area (2.08^∗∗) and machine labour (2.04^∗∗) were found significant. On medium farms, area (2.161^∗∗), human labour (2.13^∗∗) and seed (2.067^∗∗) were significant, and for large farms, area (2.51^∗∗), machine labour (2.03^∗∗) and human labour (2.10^∗∗) were significant, whereas other inputs were insignificant for respective catagories. In regard to resource use efficiency of small farms, area (4.04) and machine labour (2.84) were underutilized. On medium farm, area (0.09) was over utilized, whereas seed (31.54) and human labour (1.24) were underutilized. On large farms, human labour (0.53) was over utilized, whereas area (1.99) and machine labour (1.86) were underutilized. The result also indicated that return to scale on small, medium and large Rabi jowar farms were decreasing (∑bi: 0.417), near to unity (∑bi: 1.103) and decreasing (∑bi: 0.797), respectively.