Production of Banana in Peri-Urban Areas of Coimbatore City-An Economic Analysis

In this paper, resource use efficiency and technical efficiency of banana cultivation were measured in peri-urban areas of Coimbatore city of Tamil Nadu. The study revealed that quantity of nitrogen and the number of irrigations had a positive and significant influence on the yield of banana. The ratio of MVP to MFC was greater than one for nitrogen and number of irrigation indicated that the under utilization of resources, hence there exists the possibility of enhancing their yield by increasing their efficiency. The overall mean technical efficiency of banana was 0.73, which indicated the possibility of increasing the yield of the crops by adopting better technology and cultivation practices. The scale efficiency among the farmers ranged between 0.49 and 1.00 with mean scale efficiency score of 0.74. Further, it was found that 84.93 per cent of farms were below the optimal scale size, have the scope of increasing their scale efficiency and thereby operate at optimal scale to increase their farm productivity and income. It is concluded that the sample farms were operating either with increasing returns to scale or constant returns to scale. This implies that the input use could be increased thereby to realize higher output.