Determinants of micro-level decisions of sugarcane farmers

This is an attempt to understand the decision-making process and determinants of micro-level decisions of sugarcane farmers. Descriptive statistics have been used to identify the determinants and heuristics decision theory to understand the decision-making process of sugarcane farmers. The major determinants were identified as interest rate on credit, amount of land available for cultivation with the farmers, accessibility to formal credit sources and market, water availability with the farmer for crop cultivation, sugarcane price, expected yield from different varieties and expected profit from sugarcane. Based on the choice of determinants for each decision by farmers, choice of crop, choice of variety, frequency of irrigation, choice of market and choice of credit source were categorised under representative heuristics. While choice of planting season, methods of irrigation and fertilizer application were under available heuristics. Allocation of area and harvesting pattern of sugarcane farmers will follow anchoring heuristics method of decision-making process.