An Economic Analysis of Bt Cotton Seed Production in India

The Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) 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. The total cost of Bt cotton seed production varied from one company contract farmers to other company contract farmers. 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. 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.