Abstract

This study aims to estimate and analyze the production and cost functions for a sample of protected vegetable farms producing cucumber crops in Baghdad Governorate during the 2025 agricultural season. The analysis is based on examining the relationships between production inputs and outputs in order to determine the level of economic and technical efficiency in the utilization of production resources. Through these functions, it is possible to identify the production stage characterizing protected agriculture in Iraq. In addition, the study seeks to determine both the optimal output level that minimizes production costs and the output level that maximizes profits by analyzing the estimated production and cost functions. The study relies on cross-sectional data collected from a sample of 36 farms located in the outskirts of Baghdad, representing the scale of production resources involved in the production process. The statistical results of estimating the natural logarithmic production function revealed a positive relationship between inputs and outputs. The findings indicate that the farms operate under increasing returns to scale, as the estimated production elasticity reached 1.434, which suggests that protected agriculture in Iraq is still operating within the first stage of production. The cost function was also estimated, and the cubic cost function proved to be the most appropriate model. The results showed that the output level that achieves the minimum average cost amounted to 286 tons of cucumber production for the sampled farms. Meanwhile, the output level that maximizes profit reached 445 tons, whereas the actual production level during the 2025 study season was only 215 tons.