Measuring production factors productivity in Fars province sugar beet farms

Production is hard to achieve by increasing cropping area due to limited water resources. So, increased yield per unit area may be the solution to increase production. Investigating productivity of production factors is very important in this context. The objective of this study is to measure the productivity of production factors in sugar beet production in Fars province. The data needed for the study was gathered by completing questionnaires among 65 sugar beet growers of Fars province in growing season of 2008. The polynomial production function of order three was used to estimate the applied inputs productivity. The results showed that marginal productivity of the inputs including irrigation times, hired labor, animal manure, phosphate fertilizer, poison and cropping area are 385, -28, -0.4, 14, 2574, and -1253, respectively. It was also found that 97.1 percent of the farmers have overused animal manure and the corresponding figure for water was 61.8 percent. Reduction in labor and animal manure use is recommended.