Added Value from Industries, Introduced in Villages, Oases and Reclaimed Lands
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Modern Agricultural Science and Technology, ISSN 2375-9402, USA February 2017, Volume 3, No. 1-2, pp. 1-10 Doi: 10.15341/mast(2375-9402)/01.03.2017/001 Academic Star Publishing Company, 2017 www.academicstar.us Added Value from Industries, Introduced in Villages, Oases and Reclaimed Lands Hamed Ibrahim El-Mously1, 2 1. Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams, Egypt 2. Egyptian Society for Endogenous Development of Local Communities, Egypt Abstract: A considerable portion of the agricultural resources are being treated as valueless waste! This leads to the loss of sustainable resources as a comparative advantage and the associated opportunity of sustainable development. This can be attributed to the narrowness of the angle, by which we are accustomed to view these renewable resources, as well as the absence of the appropriate means to turn this waste to wealth. The first aspect is associated with the level of the R&D activities. The role of the researchers is, proceeding from the understanding and valorization of the traditional technical heritage of use of these resources, to issue a contemporary edition for the use of these resources, to rediscover them as a material base for the satisfaction of human needs: on the local, national and international levels. The second aspect is associated with industry. Industry here is understood in broad terms as these activities, conducted under defined conditions to transform the state, shape or properties of the agricultural resources to satisfy a certain criterion or requirement along a predetermined path of transformation to a final product. Proceeding from this definition industry includes a wide spectrum of activities including: sorting (to various sizes or quality levels), packaging, drying, freezing, pressing, squeezing, filtering, threshing, baling, etc. The above mentioned definition opens several degrees of freedom: in selection of geographical location of industry (e.g., in village, town or city), in site selection on the microscale (e.g., field, field head, house, workshop, industrial premises of various area and infrastructural requirements, manpower involved (e.g., men, women, children), source of power (human labor, sun, wind or water energy, or energy from hydrocarbons, level of technology (manual, mechanized, up to fully automatic processes), and mobility (e.g. stationary or mobile as for example fish processing on board of fishing ships). Industry could also be classified into preparatory processing of a resource and the processes of manufacture of a final product. In the paper the new vision of whole resource use will be illustrated giving different examples. A new perception of resource components will be given to associate them structurally with the performance criteria of different products/services. An integrated approach will be suggested for the industrialization of the rural areas to realize the objective of endogenous sustainable development , as well as a high added value along the value chain: from the field to the market including: selection of industrial projects, their spacial distribution and appropriate technology. Key words: endogenous development, local communities, added value, industries, renewable material resources, agricultural residues, innovative products, traditional products, whole resource use, technical heritage and Bedouins were able to satisfy their basic needs 1. Introduction using the locally available resources, most of which Perhaps until the sixties of the last century the were products of agricultural activity [7]. The drastic subsistence economy was dominant in most of the and abrupt change of the style of life due to the villages and the oases in the Arab world. Relying on westernization wave propagating in rural and desert their culturally-rooted technical heritage, accumulated areas, as well as the compulsory modernization process, and self-developed by successive generations, villagers pushed by successive governments and investors has violated the cultural continuity in the Arab region and Corresponding author: Hamed Ibrahim El-Mously, destroyed the historically-woven symbiotic relations Professor, research areas/interests: renewable material between the villagers/Bedouins and their local contexts resources. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Added Value from Industries, Introduced in Villages, Oases and Reclaimed Lands and resources. Many of these resources, especially the compose a new contemporary edition of their residues of the agricultural resources, became culturally-developed style of life [1]. Within this redundant turning to be a burden on the environment framework lies a great opportunity for innovation in and a source of environmental pollution. The most trying to make full use of the uniqueness each dangerous result of this process is the loss — and village/oasis possesses: in historical experience, perhaps forever — of the unique to each local ecological conditions and resource endowment to find community traditional knowledge, including the out the comparative and competitive advantages each technical heritage that may have been a spring board village/oasis has and use them in development. Thus for the improvement of the means of livelihood of the great diversity the Arab region has: in cultural members of these communities. The adoption of the backgrounds, historical experiences, ecological new style of life has unproportionally increased the conditions and resource endowment will serve as an financial burden on villagers/Bedouins, as compared inexhaustible source of innovation in practices of with the increase of the prices of their agricultural sustainable development. products leading to the threatening of the economic 2. We Need A New Vision feasibility of the agricultural activity at large. As far as the drylands are concerned, the above 2.1 The Localization of Development mentioned conditions have been exacerbated by the The neoliberal capitalist system endeavors to climate change leading to the decrease of the rate of neutralize the factors of production world-wide (e.g., rain fall by 30%1, negatively affecting the intensity of raw materials, labor, capital, etc.) and merge them in plant coverage falling short of satisfying the needs of huge systems of production (e.g., transnational livestock, which has exceeded the carrying capacity of companies). This leads to the violation of ties of the rangelands. All these conditions are behind the belonging associating people with their local contexts increase of migration of the youth from villages and and resources, disabilitating them and turning them to desert communities to big cities and abroad in search be passive consumers of whatever is offered to them in for better life conditions. This situation poses a serious the international market. Thus whole local cultures are challenge to development practioners. threatened to disappear destroying with them the A new vision is needed to view the agricultural potentiality of emergence of new alternative models of resource in its integrity including the main and development. Therefore, efforts should be directed to secondary (and even tertiary; I mean the residues of the localization of development. Thus there is a need to residues!) products. Here science and technology are adopt a new approach of planning from below: the needed to rediscover the available local resources with grass root level upward. The objective here is to the objective of satisfaction of contemporary needs on discover, on the local micro level, the comparative and the local, national and international levels. Viewed competitive advantages of local communities that may from the perspective of the local community, this lead to the establishment of innovative production endeavor may be perceived as a process of systems with new economic features to satisfy local revitalization of thinking and imagination of the needs, as well as national and international needs village/oasis inhabitants leading to the unleashing of making use of the market niches, opened by the world their endogenous capabilities and thus helping them to market. 1 The presentation of Mrs. Ream El-Razy from Morocco, at Desert Ecosystem and Livelihoods Knowledge Sharing and 2.2 Endogenously Initiated Patterns of Development Coordination Project (MENA-DELP, 2nd Regional workshop), best agricultural practices in desert areas, on 4 and 5 May, 2014, The endogenously initiated patterns of development Amman-Jordan. Added Value from Industries, Introduced in Villages, Oases and Reclaimed Lands 3 — as opposed to the exogenously imposed pattern of product. This idea will urge us to search for the development — mean that the local community comparative and competitive advantages each acquires the feelings of ownership of the change from village/oasis has and study its specificity (e.g. the very start: beginning from the ideas. This means the historical experience, cultural background, ecosystem involvement of community members and their taking features, etc.) to find out what is unique to it and how of responsibility to act. This also opens an this uniqueness can be expressed in a product/service inexhaustible source of innovation and guarantees that can be marketed locally, nationally or sustainability of development. internationally. This line of thinking will end up by coining trademarks, associated with a wide spectrum of 2.3 Tailoring of Science and Technology to Serve the products/services, characterizing each village/oasis. Needs of the Local Community 2.5 The Whole Resource Use There