Agricultural mechanization inputs and costs in watermelon production in Adana province

ABSTRACTMSc THESISAGRICULTURAL MECHANIZATION INPUTS AND COSTSIN WATERMELON PRODUCTIONIN ADANA PROVINCECelal KARADEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINERYINSTITUTE OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCESUNIVERSITY OF ÇUKUROVASuperviser Prof.Dr. Faruk ÖZGÜVENYıl: 2006, Sayfa: 65Jury Prof.Dr. Faruk ÖZGÜVENProf.Dr. Faruk EMEKSİZAssist.Prof.Dr. Sait M. SAYIn recent years, farmers are facing considerable hardship as a result of the lowprices their products are fetching in the markets. Because of this fact, they aresearching new production methods which will give a chance for more efficient use ofsources and new investment areas. Rather than applying new techniques, determiningthe all cost items and optimizing them is one of the other way leading to theprofitable production. In order to increase the competitiveness in the market, afarmer requires a detailed cost data for analyzing the production efficiency. On theother hand, cost per unit production area is the key factor for evaluating thecompetitive power.In this study, watermelon production which is an important branch for bothTurkey and Adana province is evaluated in terms of detailed cost analysis and arounddata gathered from different farms. In addition, share of all mechanization relatedcost in all are focused on.According to the results obtained from this study, total machine hours forwatermelon production in greenhouse and open field were calculated as 127 h/ha and99 h/ha respectively. On the other hand, total costs for greenhouse and open fieldproduction were determined as 5513.8 YTL/ha and 3926.5 YTL/ha respectively.Mechanization related costs were 1203 YTL/ha for greenhouse and 1528.8 for openfield production. The share of mechanization related costs in total were % 21,8 and% 38,9 for greenhouse and open field production respectively.Key words : Watermelon production; Agricultural mechanization costs