Analysis of Costs and Performance of Farm Mechanization for Cereal Crops in Riyadh Region

The aim of this study is to analyze the farm mechanization costs for cereal crops at Riyadh region. The results illustrated the farm mechanization average cost was about 963.8 Riyals / hectare. However, the average cost has decreased from 1685 Riyals / hectare for farm size less than 100 hectare to 576 Riyals / hectare for farm size larger than 200 hectare. The mechanization costs include; the annual depreciation costs ( 398 R/h ) , repairing and maintenance costs ( 288 R/h ) , labor costs ( 210.8 R/h ) , and machines operation costs ( 66 R/h ). The farms have spent a lot of investments on farm machines about one third of their net annual revenues; the net annual revenues have reached about 309% compared to the investments in farm machines. The study has evaluated the relative size standard of the invested capital in mechanization related to both of laborer number and the farm production of wheat and barley, and the farm size represented by its area, it has reached 193.02 Riyals/laborer and 4.6 Riyals/ton and 9.04 Riyals/Hectare. The invested capital economic average revenue in the sample mechanization has reached 0.8% and the direct operation cost of the land preparation for farming has reached 400 Riyals/hour, and for irrigation, it has reached 210.5 Riyals/hour, and for the harvester 241,99 Riyals/hour. The real cost of farm machines employment of the land preparation process for farming has reached 402 Riyals/hour, and 211 Riyals / hour for irrigation, and 243 Riyals/hour for harvesting machin