Author(s):

D Rafi

Abstract: Small and marginal farmers constitute the largest group of cultivators in Indian agriculture. Although the productivity of small and marginal farmers is more than that of medium and large farmers, their economic condition is worse off. A variety of approaches have emerged in response to the problems faced by the small and marginal farmers. Hence the Indian government has been promoting a new form of collectives called Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to address the challenges, faced by the small and marginal farmers, particularly those to do with enhanced access to investments, technological advancements, and efficient inputs and markets (Hellin et al., 2009; Department of Agriculture & Cooperation 2013) ^[5]. Purposive-cum-random sampling technique was employed for the selection of sample. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was carried out in SPSS (IBM software version 21) to examine the Technical Efficiency of selected farms. Mean technical efficiency of inputs was relatively higher on FPO farms over non-FPO farms. Particularly the mean technical efficiency was superior in onion over groundnut, but between FPO and non-FPO farms, the technical efficiency was encouraging for both the crops on FPO farms. Between FPO and non-FPO farms of onion and groundnut FPO farms were better off in respect of OTE, PTE and SE than non-FPO farms.

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