اقتصاديات قش الارز بين التلوث البيئي والتدوير[Economics of rice straw between recycling and wastes]

This study was conducted to achieve two objectives (1) To specify and identify: The recycling of agricultural wastes, the negative effects of non-recycling of such wastes versus the positive effects of recycling it, and to analyze policies affecting the management of agricultural waste use in Egypt, with a focus on rice straw, (2) To estimate the profitability and then Comparing the added value of the common rice recycling patterns in rural Egypt. To achieve the first goal, the study relied on secondary data, whether published or unpublished, and reviewing of related literature using the method of content analysis, where it derived the concept and volume of agricultural waste and the recycling patterns with focusing on rice straw, as well as the institutional policies, the price, technical and marketing policies. To achieve the second objective, the study used a field survey of a systematic random field sample of 40 farmers of rice crop holders in two villages from Sharqya Province. The study concluded that the liberalization of the agricultural market and increasing the supply of grains in Egypt as a result of increased productivity has resulted in a huge increase in the supply of wheat and rice straw, which created the phenomenon of burning rice straw and also found that despite the positive significance of the total recycling ratio of rice straw amounted to about 80% of the annual produced hay, the quantities that have been recycled to alternative economic patterns was very little (6% organic fertilizer, 1% treated rice straw feed), the rest was as compressed rice straw in bales, which only reduce transportation and storage costs, and indirectly reduced the negative environmental impact of burning rice straw. The study provided evidences that the highest economically viable recycling pattern is recycling as compost fertilizer, followed by treated rice straw as animal feed. The study recommended that there is still a wide scope to rotate the total available agricultural waste, condition that the society is willing to prevent the losses caused by environmental pollution and gain the added economic values that will be generated when activating the full recycling of all available waste associated with high possible employment opportunities. Such program requires a big effort to deepen the awareness among young people towards the adoption of these projects via providing technical support and financing plan for them to establish an integrated system for collection, packaging and storage of these wastes for recycling in Locations closer to the collection areas than to the areas of use. Key Words: Rice Straw, Agricultural Wastes, Recycling, Agricultural Policy.