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Description:
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Currently , Egypt is faced with several fundamental problems : an ever -increasing population , a limited supply of cultivable land and a limited supply of water resources . These problems intensify the importance of developing efficient natural resource use strategies . The future of Egypt depends on the water stored in the Nasser Lake reservoir for all purposes . There is strong evidence that governmental policies in the agricultural sector have led to an inefficient allocation of resources in general and water resources in particular , the latter being the focus of this study . These policies should be examined within sound economic frameworks , and policy alternatives should be tested to insure the efficient use of water resources . The last drought in Africa brought attention to the need for optimal intertemporal allocation of this vital resource .
The main objective of this study was to determine optimal decision rules of cropping mix and irrigation water in Egypt under different policy settings and water inflow levels . This study tests the impact of these policies and water availability on the optimal decision rules in an intertemporal context . A total of 10 dynamic programming models were developed to address the objective . The models considered two different policy settings . The first setting included the current agricultural policy of cropping area regulations and administered prices in both agricultural inputs and outputs markets . In the second setting , the elimination of these policies was assumed to simulate free market conditions .
Both policy settings were tested under five different water inflow scenarios over a 30 -year planning horizon . The derived optimal decision rules for the different models were used to construct a Decision Rule Matrix , which summarizes the optimal course of action that should be pursued given a particular condition .
The results obtained indicate that the elimination of current agricultural land regulation and the modification of the policies , with respect to prices in both inputs and outputs markets in the Egyptian agricultural sector , would lead to higher revenues and to an increase in water use efficiency . The study also revealed that if such deregulation actions were to take place , a reduction in the variation of regional and intertemporal water allocation would be achieved . This in turn would reduce the managerial burden of water control and allow for better water management . Furthermore , such actions would lead to a regional crop consolidation process which would ease the managerial and administrative effort requirements for crop production and water control . |