CRC Press Agribusiness as the Future of Agriculture: The Sugarcane Industry under Climate Change in the Southeast Mediterranean

This informative book reviews the challenges of agribusiness in the Southeast Mediterranean. The author focuses on sugarcane cultivation in Egypt to illustrate the impact of climate change on agribusiness, and his method and findings may be helpful for other studies in other regions as well. As climate change creates new risks to human populations and food security, a better analysis is needed to understand this new level of uncertainty and to understand how it will impact agriculture and its relationship with economies, livelihoods, and development. Africa emits low greenhouse gases but is hit the hardest by global warming, posing a serious challenge to increasing agricultural productivity in the Southeast Mediterranean. Sugarcane in Egypt is used as a local food source, for international trade, for the balance of payments, for land and water use, and as a basic product for food and fiber manufacturing. Hence every aspect of the economic structure of Egypt relates to agriculture. The book examines the causes and effects of climate change on agribusiness in the Southeast Mediterranean region, such as its effect on prosperity and net farm incomes crop yields. It considers how to promote agribusiness development in the area and the potential to alleviate poverty in rural areas. It looks at the future of the sugarcane industry in Upper Egypt as a case study of agribusiness, with implications that can be applied globally. About the Author Youssef M. Hamada, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economy at the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Egypt. In addition, he was a researcher at the Central Laboratory for Design and Statistics Analysis Research. He received his BSc in Agriculture Economics, his MSc in the economics of the bread industry, and PhD in the possibilities of the bread-industry development at A.R.E. from the University of Al-Azhar, Egypt. He received his Diploma in Translation Arabic–English from the Translation Center, American University, Egypt. He was awarded training from ECARDA, Aleppo, Syria, (training course for building databases and electronic websites on the Internet) and an International Training Workshop on Economic Development Policies and Practices for Desertification and Dry Land for Affected African Countries from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China. He has published more than 30 papers in local and international journals as well as two book chapters and one book.