Introductory Overview of the Projected Distress

Abstract

The urgency of feeding the growing population in Egypt, while combating soil pollution, salinization, and desertification has given plant and soil productivity research vital importance. Furthermore, high population increase will increase food production–consumption gaps, as well as food insecurity. Egypt suffers from several food gaps, namely wheat and maize. In addition, there is a gap in legumes, sugar, and oil crops. Because water resources in Egypt are becoming limited and scarce, Egypt will face a problem to allocate water to agriculture to maintain food security. Moreover, soil salinity is an enormous problem for agriculture under irrigation. In addition, the abiotic stress that climate change will cause, i.e., water and heat stress can disturb physical and chemical processes in crops. Moreover, water requirements will increase for most of the cultivated crops. Consequently, cropping pattern in Egypt will be highly affected by these anticipated stresses. Therefore, cropping pattern should be adjusted to combat these negative effects on cultivated area and food production in Egypt. This study is set to be implemented on the Nile Delta and Valley for governorates irrigated using surface irrigation from the Nile River, which is called old lands, as well as the areas on the edges of these governorates (new land and its soil is sandy). These areas are irrigated with irrigation systems, namely sprinkler or drip systems, depending on the cultivated crop. The recorded cropping pattern in Egypt in 2014/15 growing season was used as a base for comparison in this study. Furthermore, this study deals with how national cropping pattern can be modify to overcome abiotic stresses, such as food insecurity, water scarcity, induced salinity and climate change, to reduce their negative effects on the cultivated area and consequently food production. Thus, different cropping patterns were suggested and evaluated to achieve that.