An Economic Analysis of Market-induced Production of Winter Cucumber: A study in the Cooch Behar District of West Bengal

Abstract

The study was conducted during September, 2022 to August, 2023 in Cooch Behar, a terai district of West Bengal, India to investigate the economics of market-induced winter cucumber production in Cooch Behar, West Bengal, across four staggered sowing windows, with emphasis on intra-seasonal profitability variability and marketing cost burden. Depending on the consistency of demand, the sowing time was staggered into four successive spells between mid-September to mid-November, each having two weeks gap to constitute fourteen weeks supply window between mid-November to end of February.  Data was gathered through a field survey and structured interviews. The study comprises 1338.73 t of green cucumber worth ` 21974738.09 supplied by 56 practicing farmers. While the second crop (sowing early to mid-October) produced the highest gross returns at ` 10,44,599.70 ha^-1 and the best return-cost ratio of 3.66, the fourth crop (sowing early to mid-November) unfortunately led to a net loss of ` 97,622.40 ha^-1.  Labour made up 38–42% of variable costs, and marketing expenses by farmers were quite low (1.00–2.65 % of gross returns). This revealed significant variability in intra-season value returns, as indicated by a Gini coefficient of 0.6985. This recommended that farmers should restrict cultivation up to the third spell of sowing or to search for a new market destination.