Almouthana Aziz Hasan*⁽¹⁾  Mahmoud Mostafa  Alio⁽²⁾  Ibrahim Mohammad Abdullah⁽³⁾

(1). Directorate of Economic and Social Studies Research, Latakia Center, General commission for Scientific Agricultural Research (GCSAR), Damascus, Syria.

(2). Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.

(3). Directorate of Economic and Social Studies Research, AL-Ghab Center, GCSAR, Damascus, Syria.

(* Corresponding author: Eng: ALmouthana Aziz Hasan. E-mail: almouthanahasan@yahoo.com).

Received: 08/05/2018                                Accepted: 02/06/2018

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Latakia Governorate during the growing season 2017/2018. A simple random sample of 352 oranges farmers were selected, in order to estimate the production function of “Cob Douglas” model to study the factors affecting oranges production and measure the elasticity of production inputs to determine the production stage. The study showed that the production changes were due to organic fertilizers, nitrogen, phosphate, and irrigation water quantity.  A significant positive effect was found for each of the production inputs in the applied model. The increase in the quantity of these inputs by 1% (when the quantity of other inputs were constant) led to an increases in the quantity of production by the elasticity of the production of 0.52%, which was smaller than one, that means the dominance of contradictory production capacity, where production is increasing at rates lower than the increase of the inputs.  This confirmed that production was in the second stage, which is the economic stage. It was also found that the production inputs were used in quantities less than the recommended quantity which is mentioned in the extension program for citrus. Therefore, it was important to provide the production requirements and subsidize the prices, particularly, the fertilizers (potassium), insecticide, and fungal control, to achieve the optimum production of oranges tree.

Key words: Econometric Analysis, Oranges, Production Function, Production Elasticity.

Full Paper in Arabic: PDF