Under patronage of Dr. Abdullah Zagloul, president of Desert Research Center, the activities of guidance campaign for planting oily sunflower crops were launched, within the framework of the research program “Improving value of oily sunflower crops strains in western of El-Minya, and surrounding areas”. and Dr. Zaghloul directed the research team towards paying attention to strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, about raising percentage of self-sufficiency in oil crops.
The campaign began by raising awareness of the importance of cultivating oily sunflower crops, in order to fill food gap from vegetable oils and reduce imports, then the importance of heading towards pre-contracting cultivation, and at last, the importance of applying technical recommendations in agriculture.
Dr. Elham Younes, head of the research team, stated that the initial stages of preparing the campaign, in which, farmers’ opinions were about the biggest problems of planting oil crops, showed that reluctance of farmers to cultivate oil varieties – due to the lack of marketing outlets, that ensure crops sale, also the lack of seeds .
To achieve the program’s goal, the research team coordinated to cooperate, with the Contract Agriculture Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, to ensure a solution for farmers’ problems, by facilitating marketing of their crops. In addition to technical support for 10 guidance fields planted within El-Minya Governorate, in the regions of West- El-Minya and Central Egypt, in addition to old areas of Bani Mazar.
