ESTIMATION OF OPTIMUM SIZE FOR MILLET PRODUCTION IN BAGHDAD PROVINCE.

Abstract

In spite of economic importance of millet as it is cultivated for its seedsand as a forage crop in most of dry regions in the world, yet the production ofthe crop as a forage crop is very limited in Iraq. The cultivated area on Iraqlevel is very low due to its high production costs, low revenue, inability toachieve the suitable production size close to optimum size in addition to thecompetition of imported foreign product in domestic markets. The aim of thisresearch is to estimate the optimum size for the crop through the estimationof short term total cost for the season 2010. This was achieved through thechoice of random sample of millet farmers in Baghdad province from whichdata were collected through a questionnaire. The results showed that thefixed costs consist about 74% of total costs for the crop in the sample whilethe variable costs consist about 26% of total costs. The optimum size ofmillet production which minimizes costs was 26 tons while the optimum sizewhich maximizes profits was about 49 tons and the average product forsample was about 4 tons with statistical interval between 0.5 – 9 tons .