ANALYSIS OF THE OPERATING COSTS OF SOME HARVESTING SYSTEMS IN EGYPT

Abstract

Harvesting machinery plays an important role in agricultural production, and contributes a major capital input cost in most agricultural business. The present study aimed to evaluate the most three common harvesting systems of wheat crop in Egypt based on total operating costs of each system. Three systems under the study are evaluated, namely: the first system: (multi-purpose combine harvester (Claas dominator 130), the second system: (tractor mounted vertical conveyor reaper windrower + local power thresher), and the third system: (self-propelled reaper binder + local power thresher). The results indicated that the depreciation and repair & maintenance costs were the most important factors influencing the total cost. Depreciation was estimated by three different methods are a straight-line, declining balance and sum of the years' digit methods. The results also indicated that the minimum total operating cost was 243.97 L.E./fed resulted from the first system followed by the third system 522.01 L.E./fed then the second system 614.51 L.E./fed.