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Abstract
Analysis of the supply response of wheat indicated that the expected decrease in the wheat area as a result of increased profit per acre of clover surpasses the expected increase in wheat area as a result of increase in the profit per acre of wheat. Such negative impact of the increasing profit per acre of berseem on wheat area is compounded because it is linked to a large extent by the inflation in the price of milk, especially buffalo’s milk. Thus accelerating milk price growth in Egypt under the current performance of the agricultural sector due to growing demand for dairy products with a shortfall of domestic production from coverage such demand will make Significant pressure on the output of the policies towards increase domestic wheat production. These findings that the average annual profitability of an acre of wheat increased around 8% during the period 1979-2014, while berseem profitability per acre raised about 9.3% during the same period. Therefore, all policies directed to reduce the area of berseem for expansion in wheat acreage have led to increase in wheat acreage by a very small percentage amounted to 0.25% per annum.
Because of increased profit per acre of wheat depends on increasing both the farm price and domestic wheat productivity per acre, and because the increase in the price of wheat to reach or exceeds the world price in lights of the deterioration in the value of the local currency would lead to a highly burden of inflationary effect on the Egyptian economy, the Government must focus on the policy to increase the productivity of an acre of wheat, especially because the average yield per Feddan in Egypt had reached only two-thirds of the crop yield of the results shown on extension fields from the new varieties, (9000 kg/ha), while the average Republic reached only about 6666 Kilograms per hectare in 2013, also literatures published by official authorities usually confirm that yield per acre of wheat, outpace the world average. It is a biased comparison for two reasons: first, there are States like Franca as an important exporter of wheat achieved in 2013 a yield per hectare of wheat 7254 kg, secondly, the Egyptian wheat produced under full surface irrigation system, while 80 percent of global agriculture is under rain fed systems, i.e. the degree of risk and uncertainty at the top, globally, putting yields per unit of area at high volatility. Therefrom, this study recommends focusing on raising the level productivity of wheat per acre as a genuine policy to achieve the appropriate proportion of self-sufficiency and find an approach to save the required disposable hard currency to establish required numbers of silos to store grains, mainly wheat, in order to save the waste in such strategic crop, which is not less than 25% of the production.
Raising productivity of berseem from 24 tons per acre to 45 tons per acre, according to the results of the experiments conducted in the Research Institute of crop in Egypt, could reduce production costs for one acre of berseem and reduces the increase in its area and reaching to liberate of the total berseem acreage in favor of wheat in winter lug.