ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR ORGANIC AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY

The agricultural policy in Egypt showed great importance for improving organic agriculture technology to produce clean and safe crops and foods. This will have positive economic and environmental response on human beings, animals, plants and soils. The present study aimed to clarify success opportunities for cultivating cotton, summer potatoes and wormwood under organic system in Egypt. The study made also a comparison between organic and chemical agriculture in sandy soils, by testing investment efficiency for organic agriculture in the sandy soils. The study states that total area of organic agriculture was about 26.3 thousand feddan in 2003, and this area is increasing at about 1941 feddan a year. These areas expected to be nearly 35 thousand feddan in year 2010. The economic production that realize the economic efficiency could not be obtained at least before 5-7 years to gain complete use from adding organic matter to sandy soil. The preference of organic agriculture over chemical agriculture is due to its advantage in enhancing mechanical soil properties and avoiding chemical pollution of agriculture. Another advantage of organic agriculture is to keep environmental balance of living organisms in soil and enhancing vertical agricultural increase in sandy soils to add indirectly new agriculture area to present agricultural land. The two criteria used in the study; net cash flow and cost/ benefit ratio indicated the advantage of organic agriculture over chemical agriculture for cotton, potatoes and wormwood crops. Meanwhile, the internal rate of return in case of chemical cropping was higher than that of organic agriculture for cotton and summer potatoes. This may be due to the great loss of nutrient elements occurred by leakage, and thus decreasing total benefit from adding organic matter in the first years of organic agriculture. The increase of the internal rate of return of the two crops organically cultivated in the sandy soils is an indicator for its economic