MASHERING ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY OF WHEAT IN IRAQ (WASIT PROVINCE AS A CASE STUDY)

F. Ahmed, A.; N. Abed, M.

	MASHERING ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY OF WHEAT IN IRAQ (WASIT PROVINCE AS A CASE STUDY)
The Iraqi Journal of Agricultural Science
Article 1, Volume 46, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 403-409
Authors
A. F. Ahmed; M. N. Abed
Abstract
Wheat has an economic importance crop in terms of production and consumption, and has a major contribution in Iraqi agriculture. In spite of many followers of policies aims to increase production and improve the productivity levels, the donum productivity still low as compared with other countries. This may be due to many reasons, including the low level of overall productivity in the most important areas, where the crop is crown, as well as the ability of farmers to achieve economic efficiency. This study aimed to identify the reality of wheat production and diagnosis of the most important sources of growth. This requires measurement of the total factor productivity and to determine the optimal economic use of the resources used. The study adopted data envelope method to measure the total factor productivity of the resources and factors affecting the economic efficiency of farmers in Wasit province, a random sample of 182 farmers. The study included number of explanatory variables, namely area, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, number of irrigations and labor. Results indicated that average technical efficiency of the production function, in a manner accordance with the data envelope, averaged 87 % in volume changes attributable to capacity. On the other hand, the specific and economic efficiency were 77.7% and 68.1 % respectively. When measuring the amount of resources that achieved the economic efficiency using a production function under the change of the returns size to scale and compare them with the resources used by the farmers, an existence of surplus was observed averaged 26, 23,91, 19,0 4, 37.84, 10 and 18% respectively. Furthermore, The estimated technical efficiency using randomized limits analysis was higher than its predecessor. The average change in the overall productivity using the Malmquist index was 1.403%. The results revealed that farmers have access to the same level of wheat production using fewer resources. Most of the farmers in the sample did not achieve an economic efficiency despite the fact that most of whom have achieved technical competence. This suggesting that Wasit farmers do not care price relations during the allocation of the necessary quantities of the production resources. The study recommends re-distribution economic resources by reducing the resources wastage, as well as to study the product prices and inputs quantities during the development of plans that ensure the optimal combinations of resources achieve the economic efficiency needed for growth and study the factor which influence the total factor productivity of the sources.
Keywords
Total factor productivity; Data analysis program; malmquist index

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