Labour use pattern and cost of production in Soybean cultivation in Anuradhapura District/ Sri Lanka

Abstract

There is a space for substitution of hired labour by family or any social farming network in small scale soybean cultivation to ensure the profitability. Therefore, this study analyzed the effect of hired labour with the other costs of ploughing, seed, fertilizer, pesticide and harvesting by multiple regression analysis. The difference in profit between the two situations, used and not used the hired labour, was also tested by paired t-test. Eighty-one respondents selected from 5 divisional secretariat divisions of Thalawa, Thambuththegama, Nochchiyagama, Glenbidunuwewa and Mihinthale in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka by simple random sampling was used in this study. Hired labour use by respondents for different practices were as follows: ploughing (42.9%), pesticide application (29.9%), fertilizer application (19.5%), and harvesting (100%). Total cost ac-1 was found to be Rs. 48430.00. The mean hired labour cost found to be Rs. 19935.06 ac-1 with the minimum and maximum of Rs. 5000 and 28000 ac-1 respectively. Seed and transport were positively (p≤0.05) affecting the income. Fertilizer and pesticide showed negative effect (p≤0.05). A significant (p<0.05) difference was observed between the mean values of profit with and without hired labour. The profit with labour cost was Rs. 169440.26 and without labour cost was Rs.189375.32 ac-1. Soybean cultivation is a profitable enterprise. In the studied sample, hired labour cost has no significant (p≤0.05) impact on income while it makes significant difference in profit of soybean cultivation. Hired labour cost could be utilized to purchase processing machineries for soybean based agribusinesses.