Journal Press India^®

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Natural rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is an important commercial source. Rubber has a long gestation period and considerable investments are made over several years before the crop begins to yield. The returns are spread over a long period. In this study, capital budgeting techniques are used to measure the economic worth of investment in rubber plantation. Findings show that the net present value of the stream of return from one hectare of rubber plantation worked out to Rs.34847.77 at a discount rate of 15 per cent of plantation without inter-crop and Rs.40485.23 respectively for plantation with banana as inter-crops. The ‘benefit cost ratio’ was 1.00 and it was 1.26 for plantation with banana inter-crop, the ‘internal rate of return’ was 29.33 per cent and 59.65 per cent for plantation with inter-crop and the payback period worked out to 6.59 years and 4.96 years with inter-crop respectively for plantation with banana as inter-crops which indicated the soundness of investment of rubber plantation. Rubber, being a perennial crop requires huge cultivation and maintenance cost and therefore an attempt is made in this paper to analyse the cost of production and returns on investment in rubber plantations in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala. ​

Keywords

Natural rubber; Perennial crop; Cost; Return; Investment; Kerala

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