دور الإرشاد الزراعي في تعزيز الترابط بين المياه، والطاقة، والغذاء كأساس للتنمية المستدامة

This research aimed to explore the agricultural extension role on promoting the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus as a basis for sustainable development by achieving the following sub-objectives: Identifying the main goals of promoting the WEF Nexus for sustainable development, understanding the importance of this Nexus, determining the importance of assessing water, energy, and food security indicators, and analyzing the WEF Nexus internal and external environments. The research finalized with an examination of agricultural extension's Nexus role. Using a purposive sampling method, data were collected from 96 agricultural extension experts, all holding at least a Ph.D. degree. An online questionnaire designed via Microsoft Forms was used for data collection during July 2024. Frequencies, percentages, and relative weights presented and analyzed the findings.
The key findings of the research are as follows:
The critical goals of the WEF Nexus were managing water resources effectively to prevent pollution and wastage while conserving them, and enhancing resource efficiency through integrating water, energy, and food sectors, with a relative weight of 98.44% for each. Improving resource efficiency and reducing waste through the adoption of innovative techniques and practices ranked first in terms of the importance of the WEF Nexus, with a relative weight of 96.09%. Water security ranked first among the three indicators of importance, followed by energy security and then food security, with relative weights of 68.59%, 65.13%, and 63.89%, respectively. The total relative weight of the strengths was 65.86%, weaknesses 90.18%, opportunities 73.63%, and threats 91.11%. The sustainable availability of energy and water, which enhances agricultural productivity and food security, ranked first among the strengths, with a relative weight of 72.92%. The increasing demand for resources due to population growth, which exerts pressure on water, energy, and food, ranked first among the weaknesses, with a relative weight of 95.31%. Technological advancement, innovation, and research support, which provide new opportunities for resource management, ranked first among the opportunities, with a relative weight of 84.38%. The rise in agricultural input costs, such as energy and fertilizers, which affects the sustainability of production, was identified as the top threat, with a relative weight of 97.92%. The most important anticipated role of agricultural extension in promoting the WEF Nexus is to encourage the use of modern agricultural technologies to improve productivity and reduce water and energy consumption, which ranked first with a relative weight of 99.31%.