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Priyadarshi Roy

The present investigation has been carried out at six villages of Nagri and Bero blocks of Ranchi district during January-2012 to July-2012. Most of the selected farmers were either medium or small categories. As farmers were selected purposively thereby, all of them were selected based on their interest to grow both Kharif as well as Rabi potatoes. From the study it was revealed that about 40% of the farmers of the selected villages are interested to grow Kharif potato and for the purpose they used only 2236 variety. Although the seed of this particular variety was produced by the farmer’s themselves from their Rabi grown potato crop. To some extent, other varieties like Ultimatum, Lal Gulab were grown by the farmers of the selected villages during Rabi season. Around 60% farmers of the studied villages are interested to grow Rabi potato. As agriculture is the main profession of the villagers of the selected villages, thereby, a part of study has been under taken in the present investigation regarding labour requirement for growing different seasonal potatoes and it was revealed that Rabi potato requires more laborers than the Kharif potatoes for both the blocks. Comparative study between Kharif and Rabi potatoes cultivation by the selected farmers of six villages revealed that most of the cases Kharif potato cultivation is the more profitable one over the Rabi grown potatoes. Although, the yield of Rabi potato is more than Kharif potato but higher market price of Kharif potato as well as non-involvement of irrigation cost relied on the lower total cost of production of Kharif potato. In this context, the selected farmers of Zaria village under the Bero block enjoyed the more net income of Rs. 94945.39 with the benefit: cost ratio of 5.63 for growing Kharif potato in one hectare of land as against the Khirdana village of the same block where the selected farmers obtained the lowest net income of Rs.58172.43 and benefit: cost ratio of 3.69 for growing their crop in one hectare of land during the same season. On the contrary, the selected villagers of Zaria village of Bero block enjoyed the highest net income of Rs. 72995.03 and benefit: cost ratio of 3.39 from the Rabi grown potato in one hectare of land as against the lowest net profit of Rs. 50846.67 with benefit: cost ratio of 3.37 by the selected growers of Bandhiya village of Nagri block, although the lowest benefit: cost ratio (2.74) was recorded for the farmers of Sima toli village of Nagri block from growing Rabi potato in one hectare of land. The study also revealed several bottlenecks for growing both kharif and Rabi seasonal potatoes. Few of them were identified as the most prominent barriers for the commercialization of the crop. Lack of high yielding varieties for Kharif potato rather than 2236 is the most important factor in this direction besides shortage of storage facilities coupled with poor marketing network of the crop.

Key Words: Potato, Solanum tuberosum, Kharif potato, Cost of cultivation, Benefit: Cost ratio, Jharkhand, Ranchi district, Importance of potato.