EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURAL MECHANIZATION PROJECT Contract Number 263-0031-HHC-01
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EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURAL MECHANIZATION PROJECT Contract Number 263-0031-HHC-01 ACTIVITY REPORT NUMBER 11 1 October 1983 - 31 December 1983 Submitted by LOUIS BERGER INTERNATIONAL, INC. 100 HalsteadStreet East Orange, New Jersey TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Summary 1 2. Project Accomplishments 5 3. Financial and Technical Level of Effort 12 4. Implementation 16 5. Next Quarter's Objectives 20 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Comparison of budgeted and actual 2 expenditures. Figure 1.2 Credit funds. 2 Figure 4.1 Extension schedule (Jan'84-Jan'85). 17 Figure 4.2 Research schedule (Oct'83-Sept'84). 18 Figure 4.3 Land Improvement schedule 19 (Oct'83-Sept 84). LIST OF TABLES Table 2.0 Demonstration/training equipment: 8 on-site (1983) and planned (1984). Table 2.1 Service center/village workshop loans 10 in-process at Governate banks and at the Project-level, 31/12/83. Table 3.1 Financial level of effort: foreign and 13 local currencies, 15/9/80 - 31/12/84. Table 3.2 Technical level of effort, 14 15/9/80 - 31/12/84. ANNEXES 22 'Annex A Monthly Reports Annex B Machinery Evaluation Series #2: 196 Grain drills, Mower-binders, Combines. Dr. Peter Reiss Annex C Egyptian Research and Development Needs, 225 September, 1983 - December, 1988. Dr. Carl A. Reaves Annex D Computer/Data Acquisition System for the 244 Agricultural Mechanization Research Institute. Dr. M. Yousary Hamdy Annex E A Mechanization Extension Program 273 for the Small Farmer Production Project. Mr. Fred Schantz - 1 1.0 SUMMARY Compared to the budgetary projections for this year (figure 1.1), Project expenditures are on schedules 1) the overall/outgoing category exceeded expectations by 11 per. cent ( 61 percent budgeted vs. 72 percent actual); and 2) 38 percent expended/committed compared to an anticipated 35 percent. The committed funds are funds legally committed through bid awards and/or contracts. The reason for the increase in outgoing funds has been'the initiation of IFB 83-03 with an estimated value of $4.4 million. Project procurement for the village demonstration and training program will involve 1360 units to support this effort. The current and anticipated 1984 status are compared as follows: On-site Planned (1983) (1984) 1. General Equipment 70 241 2. Seedbed Preparation 82 209 3. Planting 43 142 4. Cultivation 4 142 5. Fertilization 1 15 6. Herbicide/Pesticide 1 56 7. Harvesting 79 185 8. Postharvest 0 41 9. Maintenance (units/sets) 23 120 Total 303 1057 Figure 1.2 summarizes the credit funds: the Service center Fund is oversubscribed if all applicants are proces sed; the Waterlift Fund has been 90 percent expended and an additonal $1.0 million requested; and the Machinery intro duction Fund has only 10 percent uncommitted. Briefly, activtiy highlights were: !. Planning and Evaluation: a. The long-term berseem crop enterprise budget has been tompleted; some highligts are: 1) The study is stratified into five farm size classes: 1) less than one feddan, 2) one to three feddans, 3) three to five feddans, 4) five to ten feddans, and 5) five to thirty-five feddans. 2) On average, net income was LE 202 per feddan. -2 80 72 70 Outgoing/Expended .61 60 46 50 43 / 38 Expended/Committed 40 -7.. 3627 35 30 20 - Key: 2016200 23 Actual 2.- -19 Budget 15 10 13 12/31 3/31 6/30 9/30 12/31 82 83 Figure 1.1 Comparison of budgeted and actual e-pendituree. 73% Bank Review Committed/Expended Project Review a. Service Center Fund ($ 5.0 million) Project Review' Bank Review 36 17 Expended Uncommitted b. Water lift Fund c. Machinery Introduction Fund ($ 2.0 million) ($ 2.0 million) Figure 1.2 Credit Funds. -3 3) Long-term berseem is highly labor intensive re quiring, on average, 479 person hours. 4) The incidence of mechanization.is low: seedbed prepararion varied from 33 to 41 percent of the sample, and pumps for waterlifting varied from 32 to 60 percent. 5) Sixty-four percent of the gross berseem income was from on-farm consumption while 34 percent was from cash sales. b. Completed Machinery Demonstration Evaluation Series #2: Wheat Cultivation -- Grain Drills, Mower-binders, and Combines. This evaluation focused on the following points: 1) traditional methods of planting wheat and observed changes from the introduction of the grain drill, 2) varietal influence on mechanization, 3) farmer preferences for harvesting: manual, mower-binders, and combines, 4) effect dn labor-use patterns, and 5) obser vable advantages and disadvantages of these three ma chines (Annex '). 2. Resarch and Development Finished data analysis and research reports for: I) tillage tests with peanuts, cotton, and maize; 2) potato digging tests; and 3) maize planting and cultivating tests. And prepared a five-year projection of Egyptian research needs (Annex C). 3. Extension/Training: a. Extension: Project village extension activities were very active during this period: rice harvesting, cotton stalk cutting, landleveling, seedbed preparation, grain drill seeding of wheat and backhoe operations. These field demonstrations involved 2,894 farmers aed 336 demonstration sessions. b. Training: The training effort for this quarter involved the following activities: 1) In-country training at training centers involve,. 249 participants in 19 program sessions. 2) Training programs in Project villages, and other field sites, involved 6,314 participants in 740 course sessions. c. Cooperated with the Small Farmer Production Project developing a mechanization extension plan (Annex E). - 4 - A summary of implementation during this past period is as follows: I. Planning and evaluation is proceeding with data collection and evaluation while data processing is progressing satisfactorily. 2. Extension is continuing to implement machinery extension activities in Project villages while integrating the delivery of demonstration/train ing equipment with village activities as sched uled. 3. Research and development is lagging in the area of applied research contracts while -in-house research is on its new schedule. 4. Training is progressing very well with the in country training programs, but lagging in the academic program due to the lack of qualified English language applicants. The observation study tours have been tempoarily delayed until some .participation issues are resolved. 5. The local manufacturing program is behind schedule partly because original expectations were optimis tic and partly because of the lack of skilled drafting assistance. With the advent of the Machinery Development advisor, this latter point should be eased but not eliminated. 6. The land improvement program has been active in Minia concentrating upon training personnel and gaining farmer confidence as scheduled. 7. The service center/village workshop program is proceeding well at the Project-level, but bank processing has been slow. This is partly because of land registration problems and partly because the bank does not fully understand the soft-loan characteristics of the fund. However, the bank has processed the smaller machinery village workshop loans with reasonable speed. Two positions have been filled during this quarter: Senior Accounting Advisor and Machinery Development Advisor. Except for the departure of the Farm Management Advisor, the Project is at its full complement of expatriate personnel. TDY support from Dr. M. Yousary Hamdy developed a proposed computer/data acquisition system for the Agricultural Mech anization Institute (Annex D). - 5 2.0 PROJECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS 2.1 Planning and Evaluation 2.1.1 Pl.nning and Financial Unit 1. The Long-term Berseem crop enterprise budget has been completed; some highligts are: a. The study is stratified into five farm size classes: 1) less than one feddan, 2) one to three feddans, 3) three to five feddans, 4) five to ten feddans, and 5) five to thirty-five feddans. b. On average, net income was LE 202 per feddan. c. Long-term berseem is highly labor intensive re quiring, on average, 479 person hours. d. The incidence of mechanization is low being re stricted to seedbed preparation (33 to 41Z), and pumps for waterlifting (32 to 60%). e. On-farm consumption resulted in 64 percent of the gross income while 34 percent were cash sales. 2. Significant progress has been made in the statistical analysis and data collation of the farm management data: a. Statistical processing has been completed for: maize, and rice while 50 percent of the cotton data has been processed. b. Data collation has been completed for: onions, potatoes, tomatoes, short-term berseem, soybeans, cabbage, cucumbers, and forage maize. 3. Completed a rice yield survey that will be used to vali date a forthcoming rice loss simulation report. 4. Started a network model for optimizing crop rotation system based upon optimal planting and harvest dates. Several anticipated outputs would be: 1) yield maximiza tion through production scheduling, 2) mechanization targets based upon timeliness of operation, 3) a mechan ization index to optimize yield, and 4) a financial and economic evaluation of these mechanization packages. 6. Computer software development has continued with a multi ple regression program of 25 variables and a table look up program, given a CDF. -6 2.1.2 Evaluation Unit 1. Completed machinery demonstration evaluation series #2: Wheat Cultivation -- Grain- Dr'ills, Mower-binders, and Combines. this evaluation focused on the following points: 1) traditional methods of planting wheat and observed changes from the introduction of the grain drill, 2) varietal influence on mechanization, 3) farmer preferences for harvesting: manual, mower-binders, and combines, 4) effect on labor-use patterns, and 5) obser vable advantages and disadvantages of these three ma chines. 2. Tractor cost and time-use study: data colle-cion and collation is continuing. 3. Data coding is in-process on farmer adoption rates. 2.2 Research and Development Subproject 1. Prepared a five-year projection of Egyptian mechanization research needs (Annex C).