Production and Profitability of Coffee Farming in Lekhnath, Kaski

Abstract

The study attempts to analyze the production and profitability of coffee farming in Lekhnath Municipality, Kaski and use means and resources applied in the study area. Lekhnath Municipality of Kaski district has been taken as the study area to study the production and analyze the profitability. There are 298 households which are directly involved in coffee production in the study area. These are divided into four different strata (very low, low, medium and high) on the basis of their production and sixty five households were selected as respondents randomly in the condition to represent the strata. This study was mainly based upon primary data which were collected through the direct personal interview taken by researcher himself. Collected raw data has been analyzed through scientific standard unit then process in Excel and SPSS program. This study has been organized into five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the study, which includes background, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, limitations of the study, justification of the study and organization of the study. The second chapter includes theoretical review, reviews of the related studies and research gap are presented. Third chapter is related to research methodology, fourth chapter is related to analysis and interpretation of data. Finally, conclusion and suggestions have been presented in chapter five. The study showed that there is positive linear relationship between input and output. Coffee growers are seen more profitable from coffee farming but while observing form economic point of view economic efficiency is not attractive because decreasing rate of AVC is too less. It indicates the traditional theory of cost but the result is not seen economically significant. The cost function for linear model and quadratic model seem to be good while observing the regression values in this model. But the cubic model does not become fit for the collected data because the value of optimum level of output is very low even if they seem more profitable. From this it can be concluded that farmers have the profit but they have no any economic analysis. The profit analysis of coffee farming concludes that the coffee growers have been seen profitable in the study area. The farmers who grow coffee in very low scale have only 11.97 percent average profit, low scale have average profit 45.22 percent, medium scale have 59.57 percent and the farmers that grow in large scale have 78.49 percent average profit. The farmers who grow coffee in large scale have been seen more profitable than in small scale. Accordance with the regression result there is high and significant effect of labour and manure on coffee output. No people use the chemical fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides during coffee production were found which is more positive and best way to prevent people from health hazard. This study suggests the farmers for motivating them to higher productivity of coffee for their more profit. The study has found that the growers are involving in traditional multi-farming activities and they have not given the priority in commercial coffee farming though it is profitable and easy economic activity. It is therefore suggested to all the concerned that coffee farming is reliable geographically and climatically suitable to Nepal, it can uplift the economic standard of people fast, so farmers should be provided with training and knowledge.