Economic Analysis of the Production Function of Irrigated Durum Wheat in Al-Ghab area / Hama governorate/Syria

Abstract

The study was conducted on a sample of irrigated durum wheat farmers in the Al-Ghab region / Syria for the season 2018/2019, through a questioner specially prepared for this purpose for a random sample of 200 farmers. The research aimed to estimate the production function of the durum wheat crop, using the "Cobb Douglas" model.

The results showed that the production of wheat takes place in the economic production stage, which is the second stage of the diminishing returns law, according to the elasticities of the production factors which is less than one. It was found that there was a significant positive effect on the level of 1% for the use of each of the irrigation water and phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers, whose production elasticities amounted to 0.23, 0.012 and 0.277 for each, respectively. As for the total elasticity, it reached (0.519), which is less than the one, and this means the dominance of the decreasing production stage, that is, productivity can be increased by less than the rate of increase in the productive factors, and this reflects in another way the technical possibility to increase Wheat production by increasing the rates of previous production inputs.

As for taking the concept of marginal cost and marginal revenue into consideration for the elements of production, it was generally found that the sample farmers were not able to achieve the optimal economic efficiency of using each of the basic inputs. There is an overuse of the phosphate fertilizer resource, as the value of the marginal product of this resource is about 30% less than its price . While there is a rationing or a shortage in the use of both nitrogen fertilizer and irrigation water, as long as their marginal production value is higher than the cost of their use from an economic perspective. Accordingly, it was also found that the purchase price of irrigated wheat determined by the state is acceptable based on the prices of production inputs during the production season, as farmers were able to achieve a profit rate estimated at 39% of the capital invested in wheat production. However, the prices of the inputs are characterized by rising steadily from one season to another, which calls for the necessity of increasing the purchase price in line with the rise in the cost of production in order to ensure that farmers

continue to grow irrigated durum wheat.