A COMPARATIVE STUDY FOR RETURN PER UNIT OF WATER IN THE NEW AND DESERT LANDS AND OTHER LANDS FOR THE MAIN CROPS IN EGYPT دراسة مقارنة للعائد من وحدة المياه بين الأراضى الجديدة والصحراوية والأراضى الأخرى للمحاصيل الرئيسية فى مصر

Egypt suffers from lower water resource in the coming few years and water consider to be one of the most important economic resources in agricultural sector. One of the important challenges Egypt facing in the coming years is the highly demand on agricultural products with fixed land supply, thus new and desert lands are one of the solutions that can meet the higher agricultural products demand. But water supply scarcity will be one of the most difficulties in the extending in the new and desert lands in Egypt. This this study aimed to measure the water productivity and water loss and return per unite of water in the new and desert lands comparing to the other lands in Egypt (Delta, middle and Upper Egypt) for different types of crops represent the main food, fodder and fibers groups during the period from 1996 till 2010 divided to three periods of time.
The results shows that the higher water productivity for the crops cultivated in the new and desert lands was for the fodder crops sugar beet, tomato, potato garlic and onion in the three periods of times. While the lowest water productivity in the new and desert lands was cotton legumes and oil groups in the three periods of times.
For the return in L.E. per unit of water in the new and desert lands for the crops under study reach about 26.17 L.E./M³ in the first average period (1996-2000) and it increase to reach about 49.03 L.E./M3 in the third average period (2006-2010) with growth rate reach about 87.3%. This was the highest growth rate comparing to the growth rate that happen for the return in L.E. per unit of water in other regions like delta, middle and upper Egypt.Thus, the study recommends in the end that vegetables and fruits and exports products like potato, onion and garlic and sugar beet, are recommended to be cultivated in the new and desert lands in respect to water revenue. While other crops like grains, oil and legumes and fiber and sugar cane are recommended to be cultivated mainly in other areas like delta, middle and upper Egypt. This cannot be applying without the return to the crop rotation policy and the pricing policy incentives so as to encourage farmers to cultivate crops with high return with respect to the unit of water.