OPTIMUM CROPPING PATTERNS OF EL- BEHAIRA GOVERNORATE (WINTER SEASON)

Sharaf, G. A.; Hassan, Azza; Mohamed, H. H.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2015.98698

OPTIMUM CROPPING PATTERNS OF EL- BEHAIRA GOVERNORATE (WINTER SEASON)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Professor of Ag. En., Fac. of Ag. Saba – Basha Alex Uni, Egypt.

² Senior researcher, Ag. En. Research Inst. Cairo – Egypt.

³ Lecturer of Ag. En., Fac. of Ag. Saba – Basha Alex Uni, Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2015.98698

Abstract

Two fundamental factors contribute to Egypt’s food security challenge: the rapidly growing population and the limited availability of agricultural land. Expanding agricultural land in Egypt is tightly constrained by the availability of water. This research aimed to develop an optimization model for the determination of cropping patterns to get the maximum profits of EL- Behaira governorate in winter season. Decision variables are the governorate total cultivated area, soil type, soil salinity, available water, potential crop yield, crop tolerance to salinity, irrigation system efficiency and irrigation water salinity. The objective function of the model is based on crop-salinity production function, crop value and production total costs. The model is solved using solver application of Microsoft Excel. The model gives the optimal distribution of crops area, water and profits. Four scenarios were introduced. Two represent un-restricted solutions; means that the objective function based on the maximum income as a function of crop value, tolerance to salinity and available water only. The other two scenarios take into account local market requirements and food security. Seven winter crops were selected; clover, sugar beet, wheat, barley, tomatoes and flax. These crops represent 97.5 % of crop cultivated area in El-Behaira governorate. The total available water in the winter season is 1.236 billion m³. The total crop area of the governorate is 592,771 Feddan (248,963 hectare). In the first un-restricted solution (URS1) all crops were assumed to be irrigated by the surface irrigation system. The optimum solution was to cultivate only three crops; barley, clover and wheat. The net return was L.E. 1.72 billion, 45.92 % of the income related to barely follow by clover 38.47% and wheat 15.61%.
At the second un-restricted solution (URS2) tomato irrigated by trickle, sugar beet irrigated by sprinkler and the rest of crops by surface irrigation. The maximum net return was 2,971,398,501 L.E.; 85% form tomato and 15% form clover, which saving 5% of the available water. The first restricted solution. The limited cultivated area of wheat, was between 30 to 60 %, barley and clover were between 5 to 10%, while bean, tomato, sugar beet and flax were between 3 to 5%. The first restricted solution (RS1) resulted in L.E. 1.64 billion.
The cultivated areas were 15, 3, 57, 14.04, 3, 4.96 and 3% for clover, sugar beet, wheat, barley, bean, tomato and flax, respectively. The net income for the second restricted solution (RS2) was 1,841,584,834 L.E.,which distributed as 29.3, 10.18, 43.57, 2.19, 1.28, 17.91 and 1.4 % for clover, sugar beet, wheat, barley, bean, tomato and flax respectively. Sensitivity analysis for irrigation efficiency, available water and irrigation water salinity were examined. The results indicated that net income increased proportional with the increase of irrigation efficiency and available water while decreased inversely with the increase of irrigation water salinity.

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