Abdullah Al-Youssef*⁽¹⁾ Ahmad Shams AldienShaaban⁽²⁾ Ahmad Haj Suliman⁽¹⁾ Ahmed Mazid⁽³⁾ Yasmeen Naal⁽¹⁾ and Salim Khoja⁽¹⁾

 (1). Agriculture Research Center in Aleppo, General Communion for Scientific Agriculture Research (GCSAR), Aleppo, Syria.
(2). Field Crops Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria.
(3). International Center of Agriculture Research in Dry Areas – ICARDA.

(* Corresponding author: Dr. Addullah Al-Youssef . Mobile: 0947273130.
Email: dr.abdalyoussef@gmail.com)

Received: 13/08/ 2015                                     Accepted: 16/09/ 2015

Abstract

The aim of this research is to estimate the technical efficiency levels, wheat production, and cost functions in the work area of “Enhancing Food Security in Arab Countries/Syria” Project. The research was conducted at Al-Bab region depending on 123 Questionnaires. The results revealed that variable costs represented about 67.49% and 65.45% of the total costs for both irrigated and rainfed wheat, respectively. The variable costs are also responsible for the variation the irrigated wheat yield by about 73.7% according to the stochastic frontier production function. The technical efficiency was (92.7%) for irrigated wheat and (79.7%) for rainfed wheat. In general, the technical efficiency of the sample was high, and this is an indication of the experience of the farmers in growing wheat crop. According to the estimates of cost functions, the optimum production accompanied with the lowest costs was 6946.4 kg/ha for irrigated wheat and 2422.2 kg/ha for rainfed wheat.

Key Words: Technical efficiency, Stochastic frontier analysis, Variable cost, Cost functions, Wheat, Syria.

Full paper in Arabic:اقتصاديات إنتاج القمح في منطقة عمل مشروع تعزيز الأمن الغذائي في الأقطار العربية/سورية