AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY AND USE OF ECONOMIC RESOURCES IN CROP WHEAT FARMS IN SALAH AL-DIN GOVERNORATE

Wheat is considered one of the most important strategic crops, as the ability to produce it has become a key factor in achieving economic stability for many countries. This highlights the significance of the current study, which focuses on analyzing the production efficiency of agricultural crops—particularly wheat—as a crucial step toward improving efficiency in the agricultural sector. Salah al-Din Governorate, the focus of this study, holds particular importance due to its prominent role among Iraq's governorates in terms of cultivated area and wheat production. Therefore, this research explores the extent to which wheat farms in Salah al-Din achieve technical efficiency in their production, as well as how efficiently they utilize available economic resources. The study aimed to assess production efficiency and resource-use efficiency in wheat farms in Salah al-Din Governorate by estimating technical efficiency (TE) based on the concepts of constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS). This analysis was conducted across the main categories of wheat-producing farms during the 2022–2023 production seasons. The findings revealed that the average technical efficiency under CRS for the sample of 60 farms was approximately 87.4%, while under VRS, it was about 92.3%. Additionally, the average scale efficiency was around 94.8%. At the scale level, the results showed that 30 out of the 60 sampled farms exhibited increasing returns to scale, indicating that these farms could increase their production while using fewer resources.