Estimate of the production cost of oil olives in Tunisia: application of the method of ascertained costs to private farms in Sfax region.

Studies on agricultural management enterprises have been formally developed in United-Kingdom then in Germany, Netherlands and France. These countries could improve their functioning knowledge of agricultural exploitations owing to the installation of representative micro-economic networks. Computation of agricultural exploitation incomes and determination of production cost per product have been in focus of their preoccupation. For the determination of production cost per product two methods have been developed: cost reconstituted method and cost ascertained method. The application of this second method in the case of olive-tree in Sfax area has permitted, in spite of the deficiency of precise information on the private olive growing exploitation, as approach the mean olive production cost during 1994/95, 1995/96 and 1996/97 campaigns. The results obtained reveal that the total cost (values of by-product and in landed property remuneration as well as suited capital included) amounts to 250 D/t. This cost reaches 294 D/t while excluding the by-product value. It varies between 133 D/t for the most performing exploitation (yield in olives of 1.470 t/ha) and 617.4 D/t for the less performing exploitation (yield in olives of 0.194 t/ha).