Search results

Supply of food from the early stages of societies was one of the most important needs of humans. Sustainable supply of food is a demand in modern societies. The agri-food market grows as the population rises every year. The increase in the demand side of the market is more than the growth of the supply side. The rate of using technology in the supply side is increasing rapidly. By using technology in some parts, the efficiency of production improved and caused more production while resources are the same. Availability of resources in different areas causes different ways of production and nurturing innovative technologies to maintain food security. Water, soil, climate change, and growth of population are drivers of using technology in food security. To depict the role of different technologies in the food industry, the authors have reviewed the role of the most important technologies in this field. Knowing the trends of changes in the industry will help to focus on the most important questions and solutions. Having a share in the global food market requires the major use of technology in production processes. In this chapter, the authors will review the most important trends of technology absorption in the food industry.

The objective of this research work is to study the artificial intelligence (AI)-based product benefits and problems of the agritech industry. The research variables were developed from the existing review of literature connecting to AI-based benefits and problems, and 90 samples of primary data from agritech industry managers were gathered using a survey of a well-structured research questionnaire. The statistical package of IBM-SPSS 21 was utilized to analyze the data using the statistical techniques of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Results show that better information for faster decision-making has been ranked as the topmost AI benefit. This implies that the executives of agritech units have a concern about the quality of decisions they make and resistance to change from employees and internal culture has been ranked as the topmost AI problem.

Tourism and hospitality have had a dynamic role in different countries and became the mainstay of the economy. Tourism, if proliferated appropriately, supports countries to accrue the benefits of the industry. Considered to have multiplier effects, tourism banks on visitors who come to a host country from other countries or are domestic visitors who move around the country. Countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, India and the Maldives have depended on Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA) for several years. More the FTAs, the higher the benefits. India too had the facet of promoting the country as a tourist destination to the world and inviting them to be part of the tourism juggernaut. Unfortunately, the metrics are not in line with the quality of destinations in India compared to the FTAs in Thailand, the Maldives or even in Singapore. With a black swan event like the twenty-first century COVID-19 pandemic, many countries focus on domestic travellers, so does India. Just before the pandemic, several plans and policies encouraging domestic travel made their way along with the promotion of quality tourism globally with a lesser number of Overseas Tourism Offices (OTO). The Federal Government in India, in a strategic manner, ensured that domestic travel and FTAs would happen in tandem. It was done through robust global tourism promotion through the India Missions and OTOs that ensured a positive growth trajectory and the metrics that provided the ammunition for economic growth. The research team also got to interview former officers of the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and players from the private sector that have played a role in the sectoral business operations.

This study aims to undertake the evaluation and examination of the productivity change of the Egyptian banking sector. Using a novel data set covering 14 banks operating in the Egyptian market from 1997 to 2013. We use a nonparametric approach (based on data envelopment analysis (DEA)) to investigate the productivity change in the Egyptian banking sector. Input-oriented Malmquist indices of productivity change are estimated with DEA to measure total factor productivity (TFP) change. The TFP changes are decomposed into the product of technological change and technical efficiency change (catch-up). In the second stage, we study potential determinants of productivity change using a regression model. We find that the Egyptian banking sector as a whole shows a productivity regress of 0.9% per year, mainly due to the technological improvements. The estimated regression model identifies some variables that significantly influence the productivity of banks in Egypt. The banks with higher loan to deposit ratio and higher returns on equity have higher productivity growth reflecting on their strong strategic and managerial skills. The size of a bank seems to be associated with an increase in productivity. The maturity of a bank (measured by age) is associated with higher productivity. The NIM and NIETA variables do not seem to be affecting the productivity of banks. Surprisingly, our results reveal that the financial crisis was negatively and statistically insignificant, hence it had no effect on the Egyptian banks.