An analysis of energy use and input costs for wheat production in Turkey

Abstract

This research was conducted to examine the energy requirements of inputs and to make an economic analysis for wheat production for various farm sizes. The data used in the research were collected from 97 wheat farms from three provinces of Marmara region of Turkey in the production year 2004/2005. The farms were chosen by stratified random sampling method. The research results revealed that wheat production consumed a total of 20,653.54 MJ ha(-1) energy depending mainly on fossil fuels. The energy input of diesel (45.15%) has the biggest share in the total energy consumption followed by fertilizers (34.21%), mainly nitrogen (31.77%). The average energy output-input ratio was 3.09 and increased as the farm size increased. The benefit/cost ratio was the highest in large farms with the ratio of 1.78. There is more non-renewable form of energy input (84.6%) than renewable form (15.4%) since the energy is mainly obtained from fossil fuels in wheat production.