Economics of Custard Apple Production in Maharashtra

About 60 custard apple growers were randomly selected from twelve villages of two tehsils of Aurangabad district of Maharashtra for the year 2010-2011. Cross sectional data were collected from custard apple growers with the help of pretested schedule by personal interview method. The cost concept of Cost-A, Cost-B and Cost-C was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that per hectare cost of cultivation of custard apple was Rs 55930.40. Among individual items of expenditure, the share of rental value of land was 37.72 per cent followed by hired human labour (11.93 %), amortized cost (11.35 %), family human labour (7.78 %), fertilizers (6.00 %), manure (4.59 %), irrigation (3.96 %), machine labour (3.42 %), bullock labour (2.49 %) and so on, respectively. Per hectare gross return and net profit was Rs 127336.52 and Rs 71406.12, respectively. Outputinput ratio was 2.27. Per quintal cost of production was found to be Rs 883.29.