September, 1995. Egyptian wheat production is 125% higher than it was in the early 1980s.
It has risen from 2 m tonnes to 4.5 million tonnes. And average wheat yields have risen from 3.6 t/ha to 5.4 t/ha between 1981/83 and 1990/93, growing at a rate of 4.7% per annum.
This dramatic improvement has resulted from a combination of new wheat technology, effective technology transfer, and a series of bold reforms by the Government of Egypt to get the market moving.
Now a study by ICARDA's Nile Valley Regional Program (NVRP), in collaboration with the Egyptian national research program, has been made to quantify the benefits of modern wheat research to farmers in Egypt. Concentrating on Sohag and Qena Governorates in Upper Egypt, the study found that farmers who invested in new packages of wheat technology could see high cash returns on their investment. At 1993 prices, a farmer who shifted from traditional techniques and varieties to an intermediate package of improved varieties and agronomic practices would see marginal rates of return of 404%. Farmers already using such a package who shifted to the full recommended package would see a marginal rate of return of 281%.
The full story has now been published by ICARDA in Economic Returns from Improved Wheat Technology in Upper Egypt, the first in a series of Social Science Papers that ICARDA is now producing so that research like this can be accessible to laymen, and to researchers from other fields.
"It seems farmers can really benefit from agricultural research when it is properly transferred," says Dr Aden Aw-Hassan, one of the authors of the report. "It must be seen in context. This achievement is the result, not only of wheat technology, but also of agricultural-market reforms. Nothing happens in isolation.
"Even so, the message is clear-wheat research puts money in the pockets of the rural poor."
Egyptian agriculture is in transition. The 1960s and 70s saw heavy Government intervention in agriculture. Output prices were controlled, inputs were subsidized, and quota deliveries of major food commodities were compulsory. These factors heavily influenced farmers' decisions.
In the late 1980s, however, as part of an economic reform program, the agricultural market was deregulated. Output markets were freed and quota deliveries eliminated. Subsidies were reduced and floor prices introduced. Area allotments were eliminated for most crops.
Meanwhile, in 1987 the Egyptian wheat researchers embarked on a technology transfer program in collaboration with ICARDA through NVRP. ICARDA has been involved with Egypt since its foundation in 1977, and NVRP coordinator Dr Mahmoud Solh is one of the authors of the report.
"The greatest achievement of NVRP in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan has been to build strong linkages between researchers, extensionists and farmers," he says. "It is a two-way process. Researchers went out of the research station to the farmers' fields to get farmer feedback on their technology, and this has helped overcome constraints to technology dissemination." The NVRP office in Cairo oversees collaboration with the national programs of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and is now beginning collaborative work with Eritrea and Yemen.
"In 1987, almost the whole wheat area in Upper Egypt was sown to aging wheat varieties like Giza 155-although newer heat-tolerant varieties, bred by Egyptian scientists in collaboration with ICARDA and its sister center, CIMMYT, had been available for some years. The task was to devise appropriate packages of new varieties and agronomic practices and transfer these to the farmers. This was done through NVRP," says Dr Enayat Ghanem, leader of Egypt's wheat breeding program.
In 1992/93 a team from ICARDA/NVRP and Egypt's Agricultural Research Center (ARC) carried out a survey to see how widely these new packages had been adopted, and to try to quantify the real benefits to farmers. The results were encouraging; 64% of the farmers surveyed in Sohag and Qena had adopted the new varieties, 73% the new planting date, and 77% the recommended irrigation interval.
However, other components of the package were a lot less popular-planting method (12%), seed rate (12%), nitrogen fertilizers (7%) and timing of first irrigation (37%).
"This should discourage too much self-congratulation on our part. The figures of 404% and 281% are potential benefits for farmers who adopt the intermediate and full packages, not bits of them," says Dr Aw-Hassan.
The report therefore suggests that further socioeconomic research is needed to find out why farmers have not adopted certain components. "There was a time, back in the dark ages, when people would simply have blamed the farmers for being conservative. It's not like that now. We need to know whether the recommendations are impracticable for some reason. It could even be that farmers know something about their agroecological system that we don't.
"Even so, the survey results are good news. And so is Egypt's achievement in wheat production. I think ARC and NVRP have made their point. Wheat research helps feeds people."
Economic Returns from Improved Wheat Technology in Upper Egypt, by A. Aw-Hassan, E. Ghanem, A.A. Ali and M.B. Solh, is published by ICARDA at US $10.00. A lower price may be charged for lower-income countries. Further Social Science Papers from ICARDA will be available in the near future.