Economic Analysis of Maize Production in Central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

M aize (Zea mays L.), a member of grass family (Gramineae) originated in Central America, is used by human civilization even in the ancient times. Maize is a C4 plant, having high genetic potency and is a photosynthesis explorative crop. Maize grain contains about 79% starch, 10% protein, 4% fiber, 4%fat and 3% minerals (Ahmad et al., 2017). It is mostly grown for grain as well as for fodder purposes and is also used as a raw material by various manufacturing units like cooking oil, confectionary and backers.The global maize production is approximately 1,060.2 million tonnes on an area of 188 million hectares with an average yield of 5.63 tonnes per hectare (USDA, 2016-17). Among the 176 countries worldwide, United States is ranked first with the production of 370.96 million tonnes on an area of 33.4 million hectares. China, Brazil, European Union and Argentina are the other top ranked maize producing countries. Pakistan comes at 17 th place in the ranking.In Pakistan, maize was cultivated on an area of 1.3 million hectares in 2014-15 with a total production of about 6 million tonnes and an average yield of 4.32 tonnes hec -1 . The average production in Pakistan is less than world's average by 1.02 tonnes hec -1 . Provincial statistics for the same year, provided in Table 1, show that among all the 4 provinces of Pakistan, Punjab is on top, and where the average yield (5.98 tonnes hec -1

Determinants of Rice Yield in Central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

“…That is the reason deeply tilled land is always preferred over conventional and conservative tillage in rice farming because the former situation results more yield as compared to the later one (Arora et al, 2018). In the current study the rice farmers did so and the estimated coefficient of tractor hours (0.04) was positive and highly significant at 5% level of significance, implying that rice yield significantly increased by 0.04% with respect to a unit change in the use of tractor and the results are in line to that of Shah et al (2020) while estimating determinants of rice crop.…”

“…In the last stage, a total of 275 respondents from four union councils were picked randomly. Yamane's formula was used to decide the size of the sample for this study as it is used generally (Yamane, 1967;Ahmad et al, 2019;Murtaza et al, 2020), given as;…”

Assessment of Cassava Utilization Patterns, Postharvest Handling Practices, and Productivity Influencing Factors in South and Southwest Ethiopia

“…Te mean family size of the household head in a single dwelling was 5.55, with a minimum of one and a maximum of ten. Tis fnding is supported by Shah et al [21] and Belayneh et al [20] who reported larger family sizes, implying that it was above the average household size of the national 4.70. It emphasized the relevance of larger families participating in agricultural production, especially when all household members contribute to the family's economy through increased productivity and the provision of services [22].…”

Does Education and Farming Experience Affect Technical Efficiency of Rice Crop Growers? Evidence from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

“…Demographic characteristics such as farming experience, age, education level, tenancy status and primary source of income influence the inefficiency of farming community in a production process (Murtaza et al, 2020). The statistics showed that rice growers in the study area had an average age of 45.5 years, with the maximum, minimum and std.…”

“…and Aigner et al (1977) both the terms are independent of each other and "ui" shows the technical inefficiency of an individual or simply it captures the gap in observed output to that of the frontier level output, half normally distributed and always greater than 0 (ui>0) while "vi" term of the composed error indicates the random factors that are far beyond someone's control (luck, climate, and other natural calamities) and is normally distributed on both the sides (-∞<vi<∞). Because of the consistency and specialty of the stochastic frontier production approach, the study implied this model to analyze the farmers' efficiency and inefficiency (technical) followingMurtaza et al (2020),Ali et al (2019),Khai and Mitsuyasu (2011), Coelli et al (2005),Kebede (2001), Bravo-Ureta et al (1991,Belbase and Grabowski …”