Food Gap Optimization for Sustainability Concerns, the Case of Egypt

• Published in: Sustainability 2021-03, Vol.13 (5), p.2999
• Main Authors: Alobid, Mohannad, Derardja, Bilal, Szűcs, István
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Agricultural policy; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Arable land; Commodities; Crops; Food production; Food security; Food supply; Growth rate; International trade; Irrigation; Irrigation water; Linear programming; Natural resources; Open data; Optimization; Population; Population growth; Self sufficiency; Surface irrigation; Sustainability; Water loss
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su13052999

Nowadays, even with the growth and progress of the agricultural sector, the food gap (FG) is still wide, particularly for strategic crops, affecting the national economy and compromising the food security. The realization of self-sufficiency can be fulfilled only by achieving the highest production efficiency along with preserving the natural resources currently available, especially arable land and irrigation water. In this analysis, the FG in Egypt was modeled for 13 crops between the years 2000 and 2018. The linear model applied suggested a redistribution of crops in terms of production, food demand and land reallocation, in order to find the best solution to minimize the FG on the basis of crop value and under a set of constraints. It was found that the value of the modelled FG increased steadily from 2005 to 2017, then it started to decline slightly, probably due to the steady increase in the population growth rate which is a crucial factor in enlarging the FG. Furthermore, important water loss was noticed through the analysis period. In fact, there was a huge difference, reaching around 25 billion m3 between the water consumed for the studied crops and the total amount of renewable water. The main reason for this loss can be linked to the traditional irrigation methods used, such as surface irrigation. Moreover, the calculation of food demand with the estimated production and the redistribution of crop land reallocations were performed to achieve the best model fit between the crops in terms of minimizing the FG in Egypt. So far, the current agricultural policy has reaped limited gains and a steep decline of food economic balance. Hence, significant interest on rising productivity should be given by the government to achieve the food self-sufficiency in Egypt.