International Journal of Agriculture Extension and Social Development

author(s)
Sachinkumar TN, Hiremath JS and Pooja PS

abstract
Turmeric, the golden spice is an important commercial crop of India and its usage dates back to Vedic culture. India is a predominant player in the global turmeric market producing over three quarters of the world’s supply. Karnataka is the country’s third largest producer of turmeric. The Belgaum district is a leading turmeric producer in the state, where the turmeric cultivation is undertaken as an economically viable enterprise from decades, but the higher cost of cultivation of this crop is leading to a potential reduction in the profit. In recent days, a shift from conventional manual sowing to mechanical sowing of rhizome has been observed in study area. The comparative economics analysis of both the methods of sowing revealed that, the mechanical sowing reduces the dependency on the human labour by 20 per cent, brings down the cost by 4 per cent compared to manual sowing. Further, an enhancement 6 per cent in the yield followed by 6.7 per cent rise in gross returns leading to 36 per cent increment in the net returns was recorded over manual sowing. Hence, the study concluded that the machine sowing is economically viable over manual sowing and the technology needs to be popularised through various institutional approaches.