Area Response and Price Relationships for Different Production Seasons of Tomato in Egypt

This research aims to determine the monthly profitability of the pound invested in each production season of tomato in Egypt. Also to  estimate the area response models for tomato, meanwhile, to drive the annual response coefficients and the response period, the research has also investigated the nature of the relationship between the prices of different production seasons of tomato and between the prices of the same seasons across time.
The data utilized are secondary data published and unpublished by the ministry of agriculture and land reclamenation as well as the central agency for public mobilization and statistics. Different functional forms are utilized to determine the main factors affecting tomato area response in different production seasons. Mainly the lagged endogenous and exogenous models were utilized. Also the simple partial modified model of Nerlove was tested. All the parameter were estimated using the ordinary least squares method (O.L.S).
The results showed that the average monthly profitability of the pound invested amounted to 0.5L.E , 0.4L.E. and 0.38 L.E for the summer, winter and Nily seasons respectively. The main factors affecting the area response are the one-year lagged farm price and the on-year lagged area cultivated. No significant coefficient were reported for the Nily season during the period (1990-2005) .
The growth rate of farm prices for summer, Nily, and Winter seasons were 4.8%, 3.3%, 2.4% respectively. The coefficient of variation for prices showed the highest record for winter tomato (62%) then for summer (25%) and lastly for Nily prices (14%). According to the double exponential smoothing forecasting technique, the prices of Nily, summer and winter tomato in 2012 are expected to reach about 1075 L.E., 600 L.E and 535 L.E per ton respectively. The per capita production are expected to reach 68 kg, 61 kg and 15 kg for winter, summer, and Nily seasons respectively.