TECHNICAL CHANGE AND ELASTICITY OF FACTOR DEMAND IN RICE PRODUCTION IN BANGLADESH

The study was undertaken with a view to finding the technical change in agriculture and factor demand status of the rice crop of Bangladesh. The production technology of the farmers was represented by the translogarithmic cost function. The data were collected from secondary sources. The findings revealed that there was a complementary relationship between the human labor and bullock labor, bullock labor and fertilizer, seeds and fertilizer, seeds and irrigation and fertilizer and irrigation. However, substitutory relationship was observed between human labor and irrigation, human labor and seeds, human labor and fertilizer, bullock labor and seeds and bullock labor and irrigation. The own and cross price elasticities of factor demand were all inelastic indicating that farmers response to changes in the price of inputs were small in magnitude. Rice production technology of Bangladesh appeared to be both labor and capital intensive. This situation may be treated as a transition to the modernization of agriculture.