AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE USE OF MECHANIZATION IN EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE AND THE COMPETITION OR COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN THESE MACHINES AND EACH OTHER

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Agric. Economics Dept., Fac. of Agric., Ain Shams Univ., P.O. Box 68, Hadyek Shoubra 11241, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Agricultural mechanization is considered one of the most important agricultural technological methods for making fundamental changes in the agricultural sector. Therefore, Egypt has worked on two main axes: horizontal and vertical expansion, using modern agricultural technology, which is one of the important tools of development in the agricultural sector because it has a positive impact on vertical expansion. The study aimed to review the current state of agricultural mechanization at Egypt level and the governorate of Sharkia governorate to find out the availability of modern agricultural machinery and equipment and study the relations of substitution and complementarity between these machines and each other and the relationship of these machines to the crop area and productivity of wheat in Egypt. The most important results were: The number is increasing of tractors, ploughs, shooters, seeders irrigation machines, hoe machines, pesticides sprayers, harvesters, threshing machines in Egypt and Sharkia governorate, The increase in the number of prisons in Egypt and the decrease in the Sharkia of seed dill, and the decrease in the number of transplanters in Egypt and Sharkia governorate. The relationships between agricultural machinery (tractors, ploughs, irrigation machines, hoe machines, pesticides sprayers, harvesters, and, threshing machines) are both linear and statistically significant. This means that there is a complementarity between these machines and each other, As well as relations between the agricultural machinery and the seeders, seed drill and transplanters where the relationship either be positive but they are significantly less 
than the equivalent of other machines are either positive or negative, but not statistically significant and therefore it has nothing to do with the other.  There is no statistically significant relationship between the productivity of wheat in Egypt and Sharkia governorate and the machinery (tractors, ploughs, seed drill, hoe machines, harvesters, threshing machines). Decreased total average area per tractor for wheat crop in Egypt and Sharkia governorate. There was no statistically significant relationship between the average crop area for each tractor and the production of wheat crop in Egypt. In Sharkia governorate, the relationship is inverse and statistically significant. There is a statistically significant correlation between the average area per tractor for wheat yield in Egypt and the average area per tractor for wheat crop in Sharkia governorate. There was no statistically significant correlation between the number of tractors and the productivity and the average yield area per tractor for wheat yield for both Egypt and Sharkia governorate. The agricultural mechanization is still in its early stages, economic relations either do not exist or take different signals. The statistical significance of the development of the number of machines at Egypt level or the Sharkia governorate for the first strategic crop in Egypt is not proven. Hence, agricultural mechanization in its broad sense is the use of modern technology in increasing production Which has not yet been achieved and hopes and efforts are required to pursue better policies to achieve the desired goals 

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