AN ESTIMATION OF COST FUNCTIONS AND SIZE ECONOMIES OF COTTON FOR THE YEAR 2009-2010(TAAMIM PROVINCE AS A CASE STUDY)

Abstract

Agriculcural Sector in Iraq Suffered from several and Complicated problems which affected the availability of food and clothing directly and indirectly.Cotton production suffered from many problems which resulted in its production decline . As a result many farmers quited cotton production and transferred to the cultivation of other substitute crops. The aim of this research is to estimate the cost functions of the crop and consequently to derive the economies of scale for the crop. This was achieved through a field study carried out in Taamim province by choosing a random sample of 200 farmers. The results showed that the variable costs were higher than fixed costs as they consisted about 69.65% of total costs. On other hand fixed costs consisted about 30.35% of total costs. The rise in variable costs was due to the high costs of labour assigned for harvesting , while family labour consisted the highest percentage of variable costs , about 23.02% and this refleats the importance of labour as Constrain in the productiors of cotton. The results also showed that the optimum production quantity was about 14.8/ hectare which achieved the lowest costs of about 302.5 thousand dinars / ton . On other hand the optimum area was about 1 hectare , while the range of the sample area was between 0.25 – 4 hectares . The results also showed that about 29% of the farmers in the sample achieved the economies of scale While 47.5% did not achieve the economies of scale and 37.5% achieved lower percentage of economies of scale. The results revealed that the price elasticity of supply was low which means the limited response of producers for the changes in prices.