AN ECONOMIC STUDY FOR PRODUCTION OF MAIZE IN THE NEW LANDS

Abstract

This research amid at studying the most important productivity and economic indicators for maize crop in the reclaimed during the period (2001- 2012), the geographical distribution of areas, productivity and production of maize in the reclaimed, the most important production problems facing farmers of maize in the reclaimed and suggestions of producers to solve them, identify the most important factors affecting maize production crop and estimate the cost function with determining the minimization of costs that achieve the highest productivity of maize crop were also made the study is based on random field sample with a size of 110 farmers from county of Al-Dakhla, Al-khrga, Farafra, Paris, Balat of New Valley Governorate during 2014 year . When estimating size of productivity per feddan for maize crop which may minimizes productivity costs to the lowest level in the New Valley Governorate, it was showed that this size is estimated at 2.04 tons/feddan in the season of 2014. The number of farmers who have reached this volume of production amounted to 20 farmers of the total sample size of 110 farmers with ratio of 18.18%. The study showed that most important quantitative variables affecting average production per feddan of maize crop in the New Valley Governorate using stepwise multiple regression procedure were the amount of nitrogen fertilizer, amount of phosphate fertilizers, number of workers as there was significant correlation between independent variables and the dependent variable. These three factors explain about 82 % of the total influencing factors affecting the production of the crop. So, the study recommends focusing on nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers due to the nature of the soil. The study recommends that price fertilizer may be decreased, provision of fertilizers in cultivating areas to avoid transportation costs, The need to provide specialized technical labor by the State and public agencies on training skilled technical labor, and support agricultural production and reduce agricultural machinery prices all these chains shall lead to reduce Egypt's imports of maize needed to develop livestock sector and to reduce the burden of foreign currencies.