أثر التغيرات التكنولوجية والاقتصادية على العلاقات الانتاجية لمحصول القمح فى مصر

Egyptian Economy had passed dramatic changes over the period 1986-1993, due to economic reform adjustments and the five years development plans. Wheat crop received great interest as a strategic subsistent crop. Its area, significantly, increased, as well as, the yield per feddan. The crops and agricultural inputs market and prices have been liberated, in addition to the exchange rate and interest rate. Technologically, the Government has implemented a national technical program, in order to, intensify and rationalize the farming practice and inputs levels, besides expansion of mechanization, (particularly new machinery, as drill planter, combine harvester and laser instrument for land leveling) and new, high yield varieties within wheal area in Egypt. The study objectives" were to investigate the impacts of such techno-economic changes on productivity, economic efficiency and employment of major inputs: human-labor, machinery-labor, biological-inputs (mainly chemical fertilizers) and land input. The objectives have been achieved through estimation and analysis of the wheat production function from cross section data of wheat farms for the agricultural year 1993 and to compare the results with a similar model conducted for the agricultural year 1986 The major findings and conclusions were: The increase in wheat yield from 8.5 ardabs in 1986 to 17.16 ardabs per feddan in 1993 and the increase in wheat price per ardab from L.E.34 in 1986 to L.E.75 in 1993, raised the economic rent per feddan to reach L.E.676, in 1993, while the current average rent in the same year was L.E.250. The technological level has increased by 70% between 1986 and 1993. it was concluded from the comparison of the Cobb-Douglas production function intercept. This was mainly due to introduction of new varieties of higher yield and new machinery, such as drill-planter and combine harvester. Derived estimates of the least cost combination of human and machinery labor that maximizes the income at the average yield per feddan (17.16 ardabs), was 44.5 man-day and 51.5 machinery-hours. Comparable estimates in 1986 were 13.25 man-day and 16 machinery-hours. Therefore, the increase in productivity allowed the expansion in human labor employment, associated with expansion in mechanization at high economic efficiency (marginal revenue of both inputs per 1-L.E. was more than one). However, it seems that the biological technology package has reached its maximum economic density per feddan (about 65 Kg of nitrogen per feddan), i.e. its productivity (marginal products' currently, close to zero. Accordingly the study recommends not to expand in fertilization beyond such level for wheat yield. To test the impacts of Liberalization of fuel price showed that it would not affect much the least cost combination of human and machinery labor i.e., the profitability of the wheat on farm level. This is because the expected increase in machinery rent-price will be only 10%, due to an increase in the fuel price by 50%