ABSTRACT
Egypt suffers from the problem of low production of fish from
consumption, despite Egypt owning vast areas of marine and lake fishing,
amounting to about 13.4 million acres of water, which led to the insufficient
strategic stock of fish, which led to the problem of Egyptian food security.
The main objective of the research was to study the production, consumption and
food security of Egyptian fish. In achieving its objectives, the research
relied on the use of the descriptive analysis method, such as percentages,
arithmetic and engineering averages, and the quantitative analysis method
represented in estimating the economic indicators for estimating the strategic
stock and food security coefficient for fish, as well as linear regression in
both its simple and multiple sides to estimate the equations of the general
temporal trend of the study variables as well as to estimate the most important
factors responsible for the food gap of fish. To
achieve search objectives, the research depends on the use of descriptive statistical
methods and economic indicators for estimating the strategic stock and the food
security factor for fish. By estimating the growth rate of fish production and
consumption, the fish food gap, the average per capita consumption, the
self-sufficiency ratio, and the quantity of imports, it was found that the
annual growth rate for each of them took a general increasing trend during the
study period, where the annual growth rate is estimated at 5.4%, 5%, 3.2%,
2.8%, 0.5%, and 3.9% for each of them, respectively, during the study period (2001-2018),
and this indicates that fish food security in Egypt depends on both production
and imports. It was also found that the surplus in fish amounted to about 0.1 thousand
tons on average during the study period, and this surplus is very small and
does not suffice for one day’s consumption. It is also clear that the fish food
security coefficient amounted to about 0.0001 on average during the period (2001-2018),
and this indicates a decrease in the rate of fish food security. It turns out
that the available fish for consumption depends mainly on the local production
of fish, which represents about 84.39% of the available for consumption, and on
the imports of fish, which represent about 15.61% of the average total available
for consumption of fish in Egypt, indicating that fish food security is
achieved from the continued flow of both domestic production and imports of
fish. Therefore, the state must pay attention to increasing investments in
local fish production and expanding the establishment of various fisheries
projects. It was found from the research that the amount of fish gap as a dependent
variable is affected by both the local production of fish and the average
individual annual consumption of fish as independent variables. A change of
0.31% in the amount of that gap in the opposite direction, and a change in the
average per capita consumption of fish by 1% lead to a change of 55.2% in the
amount of that gap in the same direction. The
research showed that the value of the fish food security coefficient is close
to zero, and this indicates a low rate of fish food security. Therefore, the
state and the private sector must be important
to increasing fish production from its various sources, and thus increase the surplus,
which leads to an increase in the food security coefficient of fish.