Évaluation de la rentabilité et de la productivité totale des facteurs de production des exploitations céréalières : cas de la culture du blé dur au Nord de la Tunisie

The main objectives of this paper are to assess the production costs and to measure the total factor productivity (TFP) of durum wheat production for a sample of cereal farmers in the North of Tunisia. Our hypothesis is that improvement of these indicators can reduce the production costs and consequently the improvement of producers' incomes. To test this hypothesis, a survey was carried out with 232 cereal farms in the subhumid region in the North of Tunisia cultivating durum wheat. The reconstituted costs approach was used to estimate the production costs. The results obtained show that total costs, production costs and net margins of durum wheat vary according to the farm size. About 67% of surveyed farms make a positive net margin. The empirical results of the regression reveal that productivity is negatively affected by the farm size, the new varieties demanding water and the investments made by the farm while it is affected positively by crop rotations