الفهرس | يوجد فقط 14 صفحة متاحة للعرض العام |
المستخلص ‐ 1 br>“Efficiency of Resources Utilization in the Context of Egyptian Agricultural Policy” Abstract The study is based on stochastic frontier approach to access the optimal agricultural policies that led to maximize the efficient use of available agricultural resources. The study considered the period 1952- 2011 classified into six phases .It is found that the average of technical efficiency of the Egyptian agricultural production Is low (53%) during the first period 1952-1961. this may be due to the rates of absenteeism and fragmentation. The average of technical efficiency is estimated at 60% during the second period 1962-1971. It is considered a low rate which may be attributed to the compulsory delivery system of crops, that was negatively affecting farmers and representing disincentives in them, During the third period 1972-1981, the average of technical efficiency is estimated at 78%, This high efficiency index may due to the adoption of new trend in cultivating, export high value non-traditional crops such as vegetables and fruits. The highest score of the efficiency index is qualifying the fourth period 1982-1991 and reaching 94%. This may due to the liberalization of crops prices and the elimination of the obligatory deliveries of some crops and the use of new technologies. However, the efficiency index during the fifth period 1992-2001 has decreased to 83%. This decline may be attributed to some substantial problems such as the ‐ 2 ‐ crisis of fertilizers, high seed prices and high, transportation and crops processing costs. Finally, the index of technical efficiency of the Egyptian agricultural production during the sixth period 2002-2011 is found to be 96%, that is the highest rate of technical efficiency. This high index is explained by the positive effects of the agricultural policy reforms that have been taken place during that period and according to which a big liberalization programmed was adopted and implemented in the Egyptian agricultural sector. ‐ 3 ‐ “Efficiency of Resources Utilization in the Context of Egyptian Agricultural Policy” Summary Egyptian agricultural sector occupies a vital position in the national economy. It generates about 13.5% of the GDP as per 2009/2010. It plays an important role in realizing the food security. It contains 3 main subsectors; plant, animal and fishery. The plant subsector comes in the first position with 56%, animal in the second with 37% and fisheries in the third with 7% of the total agricultural production. Also the agricultural sector plays an important role in the Egyptian trade balance, it’s exports amounting to L.E 13.8 billion which represents about 11.4% of the total value of the Egyptian exports which amounting to L.E121 billion during the period 2007-2010. The agricultural imports are estimated at L.E37.7 billion which represents about 16.4% of the total value of the Egyptian imports which amounting to L.E230 billion during the same period. Hence the responsibility of this sector in one way or another by working to narrow the gap between the value of imports and exports. The agricultural policies are applied to guarantee the economic and social welfare of the Egyptian society including the rural population. The focus on the agricultural sectors comes as a response to the facts that; a) the relative importance of the sector, b) unlimited requirements of the population in different agricultural commodities and c) the current uses of limited agricultural resources are not qualified by optimum uses. Hence, the study of economic agricultural resources should not only to tend to identify the type, size and distribution of these resources, but must be extended to an analytical study of methods to achieve efficient use of those resources. The problem of the study is to discover the best agricultural policies which have been adopted by the government and that permitted the ‐ 4 ‐ efficient uses of agricultural resources provided that interest of both farmers and the society are guaranteed. The different agricultural resources in Egypt have been subject in the study of the first character. Therefore, the main resources are investigated. The first kind of resources; water resources include both traditional resources such as Nile River and rainfall, and non-traditional resources such as underground water, drainage water, treated sewage water and treated sea water. According to 2010 estimates, total supply of fresh water amounts to about 80.4 billion m3, the Nile water represents 69%, drainage water represents 19%. The third and fourth positions are attributed to underground and rainfall water. Treated sea water comes in the last position. The use of fresh water available supply is 79.7% to agriculture. The current agriculture strategy (2030) works on both sides; supply by developing and improving different resources and demand by rationalizing the water use. As far as the land resources are concerned, annual average of cultivated area amounts to 6.56 million feddans during the period 1952- 2011, with a low average of average of 5.34 million feddans in 1963 and a high average of 8.78 million feddans in 2009. As regard to the crop area, the annual average is about 11.92 million Feddans with a minimum of 9.31 million in 1952 and a maximum of about 15.5 million in 2009. So the intensification coefficient is estimates as 182% as an average in the same period. ‐ 5 ‐ The land resources in Egypt are subject to a very difficult problem that negatively affects quantity and quality of cultivated area. The problem is a double folded one as it affects both quantity and quality of arable land. In fact a big number of farmers cause soil degradation by moving the surface soil of the arable land to use it in producing breaches. Other farmers leave parts of their land empty without cultivating any crops as a first step to change its are from agricultural to non agricultural activities. Because if this sort of urbanization the agricultural loses a lot of agricultural lands. Some estimates indicate the urbanized area amounts to about 134 thousand feddans during the period 1983-2008. The rate of urbanization of agricultural land has been subject to substantial increases our the last two years. Some estimates indicate that the losses by about 500 thousand feddans during the last two years. The third group of agricultural resources are the human resources. The overall employment has augmented farm 6.9 millions in 1963 to 23.8 millions in 2010. Agricultural employment has increased from 3.7 millions to 6.7 millions during the same period. Worth mentioning that the relative importance of agricultural with respect to national employment has been subject to declining trend over that period. This may be attributed to the low agricultural investments, immigration from rural to urban areas and to other countries and the besides of technological change for capital using techniques. The immigration of labor out the agricultural sector was due to the low labor’s income in agricultural during 1960- 1995. This has negatively affected the agricultural labor market that become a labor shortage market. The situation has been subject to change by mid 1990. In fact the sleaze of wage has been increasing from 30% in ‐ 6 ‐ 1968 to 73% of total agricultural income by the mid 1990. This may be interpreted by the certain of a new situation of labor deficit in agricultural that positively affected the agricultural wage rates. Worth mentioning that the agricultural strategy 2030 is expecting the creates of about 4 million jobs in agricultural through years 2030. When it comes to agricultural capital resources, they are defined as all fixed assets except land. So, capital contain both fixed assets and working capital. Egyptian agricultural investments amount to LE 4.2 billion as annual average during the period 1952-2011, with a minimum of LE 0.26 billion in 1952 and a maximum of LE 15.8 billion in 2002. As for the agricultural inputs, their annual average value amounts to LE 16.3 billion at fixed prices during the period 1952-2011 with a minimum of LE 4.9 billion in 1952 and a maximum of LE 38.3 billion in 2002. Worth mentioning that total agricultural investments required in the agricultural strategy 2030 is estimated at LE 500 billion if targeted annual growth rate is 4% and LE 640 billion if that growth rate is 5%. As long as the second chapter is concerned, all the related literatures are classified into four categories according to the four kinds of resources, water, land, human and capital resources. Chapter three of the study has adopted on the existing classification of the whole time period 1952-2011. According to their classification, such a period may be broken down into six periods: - 1952-1962: The agrarian reform and nationalization. - 1962-1971: The socialism and government control. - 1972-1981: The first plane of open door economic policy. ‐ 7 ‐ - 1982-1991: The second plane of open door economic policy. - 1992-2001: The first plane of liberalization. - 2002-2011: The second plane of liberalization. chapter forth has dealt the concept of efficiency and Farrell methodology for measuring technical efficiency and finally the quantify of technical efficiency, that’s in three chapters. The study found that the technical efficiency of Egyptian agricultural production during various of Egyptian Agricultural periods of time, amounted to about 53% and 60% and 78% and 94% and 83% and 96% during the periods 1952-1961 and 1962-1971 and 1972-1981 and 1982-1991 and 1992-2001 and 2002- 2011,respectively. . It was found that the second period of liberalization of Egyptian agricultural policies phase 2002-2011 is the best phase and most positive on technical efficiency of agricultural production rising, which means the use of agricultural resources in that period used rationally to achieve standards of economic efficiency, which refers to the effective role of agricultural policies in that period, which led to more efficient use of agricultural resources. |