The study aims to explore the current status of organic farming in Egypt compared to traditional farming, via estimating economic efficiency indices for the selected crops. In addition, it investigates marketing and production obstacles facing the adoption of organic farming, as well as, a number of suggested solutions to overcome such obstacles and widen organic farming adoption.
Primary and secondary data are employed in this study. The first is mainly collected from main organic producing areas in Behera, Fayoum and Ismailia governorates using a questionnaire for three main groups of crops. Firstly, vegetable group, that includes green beans and potatoes. Secondly, aromatic and medicinal group composes of chamomile, marjoram, peppermint and calendula. Thirdly, field crops group, consists of cotton and rice. Secondary sources of data are mainly obtained from Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR), Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAMPS) and FAO publications
The study composes of introduction and five chapters. The first chapter discusses concepts of organic farming, its evolution in Egypt and the world, current status of organic farming in Egypt. Review of literature is the subject of chapter two.
The third chapter is devoted to estimate the economic indicators of income and costs)such as Feddan Productivity،Gross Margin، Net Return ،Relative Profitability ، Benefit Cost Ratio، Benefit Cost Ratio،Grower's Margin ،Grower's Incentive and Value Added for studied crop groups for both conventional and organic farming. Moreover, (t) test is employed in this chapter to determine whether there is a significant difference between organic and traditional farming. However, the results show that there is a statistically significant difference in organic average for the economic indicators than traditional farming in favour of organic farming for the studied crops .Meanwhile,
The forth chapter discusses the estimation of production, distribution and economic efficiencies for agricultural resources employed in producing the studied crops. The study adopts the Data Envelope Analysis technique (DEA) for estimating the above mentioned efficiencies for both traditional and organic farming. However, the results depict the results for organic farming is higher than traditional farming and there is a statistically significant difference between their scores either estimated according to constant return to scale (CRS) or variable return to scale (VRS).
Moreover, the fifth and last chapter is devoted to marketing the studied organically crops, in addition to obstacles of production and marketing that facing organic farming and recommendations to overcome and enhance adopting such option. However, the results depict the higher market margins for organic farming and the lower producer share in consumer's pound.