Economic Analysis of Okra (Hibiscus Esculentus L.) Production functions In Nineveh governorate for Year 2019

Abstract

Vegetable production farms in general and okra growers in particular suffer from low production rates and productivity, which does not reflect the optimization in the use of available resources, and perhaps one of the most important reasons is the lack of use of scientific methods, as the farmers’ lack of technical and economic knowledge of the factors affects the production of okra crop. The research aims to estimate the production functions through which it is possible to analyze the production relations and the possibility of substitution between the various production elements, measure their substitution flexibility and find economic derivatives for them. Cross-sectional data were used according to a random sample that included 100 farms from Nineveh Governorate. The results of the estimation of the unrestricted production function showed that the function parameters are consistent with the logic of economic theory and statistical and standard tests. It was found that through the size of the function parameters, capital has a great importance in producing the crop compared to the labor element, since an increase of capital by 10% would lead increase production by 8.8%, due to the nature of vegetable crops production that needs increasing the capital, and it has been found that farmers produce in the rational economic stage. The substitution elasticity of the unrestricted production function was about 1.04, meaning that farmers produce according to the increasing returns to scale. We infer from the study that the economic resources used in the production process are optimally utilized, which led to higher production efficiency. The study recommends working to follow a production policy aimed at increasing economic efficiency and achieving the optimal use of the available resource combination, which is reflected in the increase in efficiency in the use of productive resources and improvement of efficiency.