IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/2681.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Zero-tillage Technology and Farm Profits: A Case Study of Wheat Growers in the Rice Zone of Punjab

Author

Listed:
  • Iqbal, Muhammad
  • Khan, M. Azeem
  • Anwar, M. Zubair

Abstract

This study presents the results from a field survey of the wheat growers in the rice-wheat zone of Punjab. The late maturing basmati rice varieties and the post paddy-harvest conventional tillage practices to prepare seedbed for wheat sowing often result in delayed planting of the crop. The late sowing is a major factor responsible for low wheat yields obtained by the farmers of the area. Introduction of the new zero-tillage seed drill in the area during early 1980s made it possible to sow wheat in freshly harvested untilled paddy fields utilizing residual moister. Presently, more than eighty thousand hectares of wheat are sown with zero-tillage drill technology. The partial budget analysis showed that zero-tillage is more profitable than conventional wheat sowing methods of ‘wadwatter’ or ‘rauni’. The new technology saves tillage and irrigation costs, results in yield gains through a possible improvement in sowing time and enhanced fertilizer and water use efficiencies. The results showed that the zero-tillage adopters earn an extra income of 253 and 2278 rupees per acre of wheat over that earned from wheat sown with rauni and wadwattar methods respectively. The results of multiple regression analysis confirmed that the zero-tillage technology enhances water and fertilizer use efficiency. However, sufficient evidence was not present to prove any positive or adverse affect of the technology on the incidence of weeds in wheat crop. It is suggested that this aspect of zero-tillage technology be focused more in future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Iqbal, Muhammad & Khan, M. Azeem & Anwar, M. Zubair, 2002. "Zero-tillage Technology and Farm Profits: A Case Study of Wheat Growers in the Rice Zone of Punjab," MPRA Paper 2681, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2002.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/2681/1/MPRA_paper_2681.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erenstein, Olaf, 2009. "Zero tillage in the rice-wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains: A review of impacts and sustainability implications," IFPRI discussion papers 916, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Tripathi, R.S. & Raju, R. & Thimmappa, K., 2013. "Impact of Zero Tillage on Economics of Wheat Production in Haryana," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 26(1), June.
    3. Nadeem Ul Haque & Musleh-ud Din & Lubna Hasan, 2007. "Research at PIDE: Key Messages," PIDE Books, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, number 2007:2.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wheat; Zero-tillage; technology; irrigated Punjab; rice-wheat zone; Pakistan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2681. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.