Economic Analysis of Fish Farming in the Northern Region of Iraq

In the '80s, Kuwait operations and the conflict between Iran and Iraq negatively affected the aquaculture and especially fish farming. This study was carried out to analyze fish productions and advancements in its development in the Northern Region of Iraq. Also, this study was aiming at obtaining the estimates of the production function for fish production and total income. The study involved 60 farms. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, variance analysis and multiple regression. According to results, the benefit-cost ratio was 1.8, and it indicates that fish farming in the region was profitable. Results demonstrated that farmers' age, educational status and fish farming experience, size and number of ponds, total fingerlings stocked, age of ponds, time of fish production, the weight of the sold-fish, fish mortality rate, and price of fish sale have statistically significant effects on fish production. According to the estimated production function, if all inputs are increased by 1%, then output increases by only 0.92%.