دور الزراعة المطرية في الحد من الفجوة الغذائية بمحلية آوستي - ولاية النيل الأبيض-

Abstract

This research tackles the rain-fed agriculture with its two dimensions: the traditional and the mechanized; in addition to their role in food security for the northern and southern rural areas of Kosti locality in the White Nile State. This locality is characterized by rich natural resources, better geographical location and good climate for cultivation. Despite this fact, most of the population in the study area suffer from poverty and subjected to deficit of food from time to time with different variations. So the objectives of this research is to investigate the factors behind the reduction of the production and productivity, and at the same time to know the magnitude of the reduction and its impacts on food gap that the area witnessed, and also to predict the food deficiency in the future accompanied by food reduction and population growth, and at the same time to find some solutions to this problem through certain recommendations that will participate in solving the problem. The researcher adopted the ecological, the descriptive, the statistical and the analytical approaches in addition to the inductive one. Many techniques for collecting data has been adopted in this research which include observation, personal interviews and questionnaire. The simple random sample has been conducted for collecting information, about 300 respondents who represent the whole population of the study area, and it has been determined by applying the statistical equation, and sample has been analyzed by using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), also secondary sources has been adopted that include references, reports and researches. The research concluded with some results that include the determination of the traditional rain-fed cultivation especially in the production and the productivity, where the production of the feddan has س been declined from 378 kg/feddan in 1970 to 98 kg/feddan in 2005 and the production of the mechanized rain-fed cultivation declined from 458 kg/feddan to 116 kg/ feddan for the same period which represents 75%. The reduction of the production with the increase of poverty and determination of health and educational conditions make the people of the study area live in continuous reduction of food security in its both dimensions, the quantity and the quality, in addition to the reduction of the food gap that reach 33435 tons, and reduction of their food security represented by 65% for the year 200. an estimation for the food security gap for the year 2008 up to 2053 has been calculated by 79277 tons of cereals for the first period 2023 and 245700 tons of cereals for the second period 2053 with satisfactory percentage 20% only. Due to the above results, the research made many recommendations to improve the condition which include the improvement of the rain-fed cultivation in its two dimensions: the traditional and the mechanized for their importance in improving food security in the study area, and also the importance of improving the schemes of the productive families in addition to the integration of the rural, the industries and handcrafts, and also the improvement of the health and educational services, and also the food awareness of the people. In addition to the improvement of food security unit, the non/governmental organizations to participate in decreasing the food gap in the study area.