Food Gap Optimization for Sustainability Concerns, the Case of Egypt

Nowadays, even with the growth and progress of the agricultural sector, the food gap (FG) is still wide, particularly for strategic crops, affecting the national economy and compromising the food security. The realization of self-sufficiency can be fulfilled only by achieving the highest production efficiency along with preserving the natural resources currently available, especially arable land and irrigation water. In this analysis, the FG in Egypt was modeled for 13 crops between the years 2000 and 2018. The linear model applied suggested a redistribution of crops in terms of production, food demand and land reallocation, in order to find the best solution to minimize the FG on the basis of crop value and under a set of constraints. It was found that the value of the modelled FG increased steadily from 2005 to 2017, then it started to decline slightly, probably due to the steady increase in the population growth rate which is a crucial factor in enlarging the FG. Furthermore, important water loss was noticed through the analysis period. In fact, there was a huge difference, reaching around 25 billion m3 between the water consumed for the studied crops and the total amount of renewable water. The main reason for this loss can be linked to the traditional irrigation methods used, such as surface irrigation. Moreover, the calculation of food demand with the estimated production and the redistribution of crop land reallocations were performed to achieve the best model fit between the crops in terms of minimizing the FG in Egypt. So far, the current agricultural policy has reaped limited gains and a steep decline of food economic balance. Hence, significant interest on rising productivity should be given by the government to achieve the food self-sufficiency in Egypt.

Assessing the Bonitet of Cadastral Parcels for Land Reallocation in Urban Consolidation

Cadastral parcels valuation is a very important aspect when defining the priorities for the selection of newly formed parcels in the reallocation processes. Land reallocation involves a new redistribution of land parcels in the project implementation area. In doing so, it is necessary to take into account the preferences of private owners, the value of cadastral parcels, and their bonitet values, whose determination is the basic task of this research. The main goal is to propose a model to assess the bonitet of private cadastral parcels based on Expert System (ES) of fuzzy logic within the knowledge component, which would reduce uncertainty and increase the objectivity of the evaluation. Expert knowledge is included in the evaluation process by defining weighting coefficients for optimizing the rule base, and linear and nonlinear value functions for criteria standardizing. By applying the newly formed ES in the bonitet assessment, with the created base of expert knowledge, the processes of estimating attribute values have been improved, especially in the form of reducing uncertainty in the assessment of urban land parcels, as well as increasing objectivity by involving a group of experts in the model creation. The proposed model also provides equal access to all stakeholders in the process of urban renewal with different requirements and desires. The model also provides support in conducting the negotiation procedures and planning of land reallocation implementation. The proposed model was tested on the field of the construction of the Campus of University of Split.

Influence of crop-water production functions on the performance of economic instruments for water conservation

<p>In water scarce basins, the agricultural economics modeling literature predicts water demand and supply curves with significant inelastic intervals, which limit the cost-effectiveness of charges and water reacquisitions in reallocating water to the environment, respectively. Such models typically rely on yield point predictions that are obtained as an average of past observations, while water input application per crop is assumed constant on a per hectare basis. Yield point predictions allow modeling irrigator’s adaptation at the extensive (land reallocation towards less water-intensive crops) and super-extensive margins (land reallocation towards rainfed crops); yet, they are not suitable for modeling adaptation at the intensive margin, which involves decremental water input application through deficit irrigation -an increasingly frequent response to water scarcity in arid and semi-arid basins. This paper introduces agronomic calibrated production functions into a multi-attribute positive calibrated model to simulate adaptation at the intensive, extensive and super-extensive margins. The model is illustrated with an application to the El-Salobral-Los Llanos irrigated area in the Mancha Oriental (Spain). Agronomic production functions are calibrated for the main crops in the area, namely wheat, barley, corn, alfalfa and onion, which represent 78% of agricultural land use. Results for a hypothetical policy that increases charges from 0 to 100 Eurocents/m<sup>3</sup> suggests a relevant role for intensive margin adaptation in the case of cereal crops; while farmers prefer to fully irrigate more profitable horticultural crops (onion). As a result, introducing adaptation at the intensive margin results in a significantly more elastic water demand curve. For example, at a charge increase of 20 Eurocents/m3, the model using agronomic production functions predicts a water conservation of 3855 m3/ha; as compared to 3123 m3/ha in the model relying on yield point predictions (a non-negligible difference of 18.97%).</p>

Land Readjustment as A Technique of Urban Land Management: -A Case of Aya Nagar, New Delhi

Land management reflect the meaning of the nation's assets and this executes the appropriate land policy by means of land organization. Moreover, it in like manner includes not just the standard organization of resources and land, yet in addition a chance to show a long haul system for the future. As respects to this point, land management is an essential action focusing on sustainable land use. Under these conditions, as for appropriate land policy of state, nearby specialists must build up some effective land acquisition methodologies for new developed zones as quickly as time permits in light of the fact that there is a dire requirement for urban land for public purposes, for example, streets, lodging, schools, clinics, parks, markets, and other public facilities as well as their amenities. Land reallocation extremely old which drawing interest in worldwide as a method for accomplishing arranged, impartial and proficient development. Different degrees of progress and degrees of usage have been accounted for just as traps and snags, a portion of the last being basic in as well as experienced by more than one nation alone. This training has been embraced and adjusted by different nations so as to oblige contrasts in both lawful structures and open private connections. This paper will share how to land esteem evaluation joined with property size was utilized as an appropriation driver, together with an all-inclusive and free property valuation device. And reason for selecting the study area because it is an unauthorized colony and the area is needed for readjustment it the locality which is placed with the brownfield as well as a green field. And these fields resolve the problem of an unauthorized colony with the help of Land readjustment.