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sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Competitiveness and comparative advantage of wheat production and effects of policy in Nangarhar Province : the case of District Dehbala

Auteur : Habibullah, N.

Université de soutenance : Wageningen University

Grade : Master of Science (MS) 2010

Résumé
This study was carried out to find the competitiveness, comparative advantage of wheat production and policy effects in two selected villages of district Dehbala, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. This research uses mostly primary data of 2010 harvesting year. The primary data was supported by secondary data about prices of inputs and outputs market, CIF prices, and macroeconomic variables which were obtained from different national and international secondary sources. The data was analyzed using the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM).The general characteristics of sampled respondents showed that that the average age of the sample farmers in the two villages was 41 years. In the two villages, a maximum of 48 % sampled farmer’s falls in the age group of 31-40 years. The literacy rate among the sampled respondents in the study area was much lower. The average farm budget of wheat crop shows that the cost of wheat production per acre includes 8 percent of the total per acre cost of land preparation, 5 percent of the total per acre cost of seed and sowing, 2 percent of the total per acre cost of irrigation, 6 percent of the total per acre cost of intercultural practices, 23 percent of the total per acre cost of manures and fertilizers, 27 percent of the total per acre cost of harvesting and threshing, 11 percent of the total per acre cost of land, and 17 percent of the total per acre cost of marketing and transportation in district Dehbala respectively. Furthermore, the average wheat yield of 1680 kg per acre was estimated for average farm and the wheat price of one kg of wheat at the farm gate is Rs.20 while the price of one kg of wheat in the wholesale market of Jalalabad was Rs. 26. Prices for inputs were collected from the local market existed during the same harvesting year and output was based on wholesale market prices of 2001-10. The import parity prices were found out by the addition of the operating on processing and shipment of the Producer from Karachi sea port to Jalalabad (Afghanistan is landlocked country) with the CIF prices. The extent of comparative advantage and policy distortions of wheat production were estimated from different standard measures of comparative advantage i.e., Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) and Social Benefit-Cost Ratios (SBC) and indicators of policy incentives i.e., Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC) and Effective Protection Coefficient (EPC), Producer Subsidy Equivalent (PSE) and Subsidy Ratio to Producer (SRP). In the analysis, it was cleared that the DRC ratio is more than one (1) for wheat for import substitution which gives information that the wheat farmers has no comparative advantage for wheat production in the study area and the result of disadvantage was also proved by SBC ratios. The NPC for import substitution for wheat is less than one which suggests that the wheat farmers have incentives to expand production and this is due to either of market failure or government intervention. Similarly, the EPC shows that the inputs and outputs of wheat are subsidized for import substitution. This implies that the policies of the government are not constant with the comparative advantage of wheat production. This study recommends Government of Afghanistan should make an effort to decrease the price of tradable inputs so that it will decrease on one side the cost of production and on the other side should increase average yield, so more vibrant support is necessary for the competitiveness and sustainability. The government should subsidize the inputs in the short term and start of making of agri-industries for input production in the long run in order to stabilize the prices and decrease the cost of production. Afghanistan doesn’t require national self-sufficiency in wheat and should import the wheat when it has access to international markets.

Mots clés : wheat / agricultural policy / afghanistan

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