Relative Economics of Menthol Mint Cultivation with Existing Competitive Crop Combinations in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve Area of Uttar Pradesh

The study was undertaken to examine the relative economics of menthol mint production with existing competitive crop combinations in the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve area of Uttar Pradesh. Data were obtained through administrating of a pre-tested, well-designed survey schedule and questionnaire from 400 farmers during the agriculture year 2018-19. To accomplish the objectives of the study both descriptive analysis and project appraisal technique have been applied to study the socio-economic status of farmers along with the profile of their farm and analyze the cost, return behavior and relative profitability. The study unveiled that about 62.50 per cent farmers were having the educational qualification level of primary to postgraduate and remaining of 37.50 per cent farmers were deprived of schooling. More than three fourths 384 of the sample farmers (96.00%) have perceived the agriculture as their main occupation, whereas only (4.00%) of them (16 families) have selected the agriculture as their secondary occupation. The average landholding size of the respondents has been found to be 2.39 acres, which are slightly less than the national average landholding size of a household. The larger area (38.50%) is covered under the combination of paddy-mentha-maize (42.50) followed by paddy-mustard-mentha (32.60%), sugarcane (22.65%) and paddy-wheat-maize (6.25%).The majority of the respondents had the medium level of mass media exposure, extension contact and having a high level of social participation. As the annual rate of returns from investment were affected by adoption cropping pattern, method of production and prices of input and output. It is observed that some competing crops performed better in terms of total and net returns over the cost of cultivation. It is also observed that the benefit-cost ratio mentha performed better and found noticeably higher than that of other existing competitive crop combinations. Moreover, among the three major cropping patterns,the maximum net return was obtained from Paddy-Mustard-Mentha accounted for ` 69.81K and B-C ratio was 1:1.62, it implies that farmers invest single rupee on deployed resources has been received 1.62 rupees additional as profit, it is also implied that marginal efficiency of recourses used and allocation considered as satisfactory level