Shaza Turkmane  ⁽¹⁾, Iskandar Ismail ⁽²⁾, and Kena Kamal Al-deen*⁽³⁾

(1) Socio-Economic Studies Department, (GCSAR), Damascus, Syria.

(2) Department of Agricultural Economy, Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University, Syria.

(*Corresponding author: Dr. Kinan kamal Al-deen, E-Mail: kenana76@gmail.com.)

Received:25/02/2021                   Accepted:27/05/2021

Abstract

The research was conducted in Swedaa governorate, Syria, and it based on a random sample of 186  non- irrigated Grapes farmers on the first – second stability zones. Data was collected using special questionnaire designed for this purpose. The research aimed to study effect farm size on costs and productivity non- irrigated Grapes crop and estimate the cost functions in order to reach economic sizes of production and farm. The sampled farms were divided into four classes based on size. The results showed that the production, return, net return and the net profit of 1 SYP/ Donnum were increased along with size of the farm .By using one way Anova, The analysis showed that there were statistically significant differences among the size of farms based on the above-mentioned measures. By estimating the cost function in the short and long runs, the results showed that the production minimizing cost increases as the farms size increases as it amounted to about 871.7 Kg/ Donnum,907.1 Kg/ Donnum,1069.1 Kg/ Donnum in first ,second ,and the third size classes respectively on the first stability zone. and that the production minimizing cost increases as the farms size increases as it amounted to about 755 Kg/ Donnum,814.4 Kg/ Donnum,914.1 Kg/ Donnum, in first ,second  ,and the third size classes respectively on the second stability zone n the other hand, the optimum size of scale amounted to about 42.5 Donnum wherein the optimum production is 1404.2 Kg/ Donnum on the first stability zone. and the optimum size of scale amounted to about 77.2Donnum wherein the optimum production is 1072.3 Kg/ Donnum on the second stability zone Therefore, cultivation of the non- irrigated Grapes in larger scales will result in the optimum production with minimized cost.  The study emphasized the need to aggregate holdings in order to reduce production costs and to achieve better returns to scale.

Keywords: Non- irrigated Grapes, Cost function, Economic scale.  

Full paper in Arabic: pdf