Diaa ElHaq Ibrahim Ibrahim⁽¹⁾ Moataz Eliw Mostafa Ahmed^*(2)

(1). Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

(2). Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assuit, Egypt.

(*Corresponding author: Moataz Eliw Mostafa Ahmed. E-mail: moatazeliw@azhar.edu.eg).

Received: 03/04/2020                               Accepted: 18/05/2020

Abstract

The Egyptian agricultural sector has an importance among the other sectors. In addition to being a source for foreign currency, about 30% of the total employees are working in it in 2014. The research problem has been determined in that the Egyptian agricultural sector has several challenges. It makes vertical expansion important for this sector development so this research aimed to identify the usage efficiency of the economic resources for cucumber in the large capacity, and small capacity greenhouses, and the cantaloupe. The results indicated that the study crops had an economic efficiency because of the return rate was more than 1. In addition to the total production elasticity which was 1.4, 1.02, and 1.19 for the study crops, respectively, which means that production was taking place in the non-economical stage for the production, and it still needs intensify of some production elements. With an estimate of the function cost, it was found that the production volume that  make  the return the greatest amounted to 118 tons, and the production volume that makes costs minim was 88.8 tons, and the total cost elasticity was 0.89. All that was for the cucumber in the large capacity. However, the production volume that makes the revenue the greatest in Dakahlia Governorate was 166 tons, and the production volume that makes the cost is lowest was 120 tons. For Al-Buhaira Governorate, the production volume that maximizes the revenue had reached about 345 tons, and the production volume that makes the lowest cost was 197 tons. The research found that the problems facing protected agriculture were the high costs for protected agriculture, low of standard specifications for plastics and some problems related to workers.

Keywords: Production efficiency, Protected agriculture, Vegetable crops, Egypt.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF