The Economics of Laser Leveling and the Agricultural Policy Analysis Matrix for Rice Crop

Laser leveling considered one of the modern agricultural mechanical techniques, also one of the good agricultural practices (GAP) that leads to increase productive capacity land, especially saline land where rice grown, as saves 20% water used in crop irrigation. Research aims to study agricultural policy for rice crop and scenarios the impact of expanding laser leveling on productive capacity rice and land, water resources. It relied on estimating equations. Simple & Multiply Regression Dummy variable, t-test in paired, Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM). This research based on primary data for simple random sample of rice farmers. The results show: (1) statistically significant annual decrease in rice area, productivity, and production about 2.1%, 0.7%, and 2.8%, respectively. (2) Rice farmers receive 74% of the value of their produce at the world price, so the producer bears implicitly taxes about 26% of value production, and this percentage represents consumer support. (3) The prices local production requirements are close to their global counterparts, which is consistent with general policy direction state to lift support and reduce burden on state budget. (4) The added value exceeds cost of local resources, which indicates efficiency of local resources and existence relative efficiency. (5) The B/Cratio was highest for laser leveling method, followed by traditional method, with average about 2.387 and 1.944 times, and product profit margin about 56.81% and 46.99%, respectively. (6) Replacing rice area about 50% and leveling with laser would increase production capacity by 492 thousand tons, representing about 12.00% of production capacity. It also achieved saving land resources, given the stability of technical level, expected to be 143.9 thousand feddan, and water resources, 1.01 billion meters irrigation water landfill.