ROLE OF CONTRACT FARMING IN POTATO PRODUCTION: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY IN JALPAIGURI DISTRICT

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy directly or indirectly majority of the people are dependent on agricultural sector where most of them are belong to small and marginal farmers. Agricultural marketing plays an important role for the agricultural development. Agricultural marketing is one of the major problems faced by the small and marginal farmers to channelize their produce to the market. Similarly, the problems of quality inputs, dependency on traditional techniques, problems of credit, uncertainty of output price etc. are the common obstacles of Indian agriculture. In this regard contract farming can be an alternative of traditional farming. In India there are different national and multinational companies involved in contract farming in different agricultural corps in different state. North Bengal is an agriculture dominated area substantially larger proportion of workers in agriculture as compared to the rest of the state. Potato is the largest vegetable crop produced and most of the farmers are involved in potato production especially in three districts Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Coochbehar. The prime objective of this paper is to discuss briefly the contract farming structure and identify the different obstacles and benefits by adoption contract farming in Jalpaiguri district.