Book Description

Karnataka is one of the nine major Bt cotton growing states in the country. The Bt cotton seed production focussed on the socio-economic characteristics of contract farmers, cost and return, efficiency of resource use and problems faced by the farmers in Bt cotton seed production under different companies. Five companies having highest area under Bt cotton seed production were selected for study. The present study was conducted with primary data collected entirely based on a multistage random sampling technique from 200 Bt cotton seed production growers who have contracted with the different seed companies. The study pertained to the agricultural year 2012-13. The total cost of Bt cotton seed production varied from one company contract farmers to other company contract farmers. The total cost was found to be higher (Rs.96829) in case of JK seeds company contract farmers followed by the farmers who have contracted with Monsanto seeds company (Rs.95797). While, the net returns obtained from Bt cotton seed production was found to be higher in case of Monsanto seeds company contract farmers (Rs.46387) followed by Kaveri seeds company contract farmers (Rs.33076). The Cobb-Douglas production function revealed that the farmers who have contracted with different seed companies, the use of seed was found to be optimum across all company contract farmers. Whereas, fertilizer resource was over utilized by farmers who have contracted with various companies. Non availability of trained labour and prevalence of high wage rate were the major constraints in case of production, where as poor technical assistance and low contract price were the contractual problems. The other problems regarding plant protection, high incidence of diseases was the major constraint in Bt cotton seed production and in case of marketing, high price of parents of Bt cotton seeds and low price of the seeds offered by the agencies were the major ones. Therefore the Bt cotton seed production technology had positive impact on Socio- economic status of farmers by increase in yield and reducing cost on inputs thereby increase in income and also standard of living.