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Course Title: World Geography

Course ID: ENV 102


Coordinator: Ms. Kazi Sunzida Lisa

Agriculture in Egypt

Name: Shariful Alam Chowdhury


Student ID: 1120023

Agriculture in Egypt has always been a matter of importance for the Egyptians since ancient
times. Egyptians settled along the Nile valley, which comprised two parts, the red desert land and
the river basin. The river basin was rich in fertility that was most suitable for agriculture. As Nile
River was a rich source of water in the Nile Valleys, the area was suitable for the cultivation of
different crops. Egypts agriculture plays an important role in the economy of the country. Crop
rotation helped to raise the agricultural production.
In Egypt, 96% of the land was desert. During the periods of inundation of Nile River, fertility is
at its peak. The banks of the river are raised, filling up the canal basins. This enabled the
Egyptians to grow vegetables and tree crops in the lower region of the Nile valley.
In the construction of canals, dams, barrages and drains a lot of money was invested. However,
crop rotation helped to raise the agricultural production in Egypt.
Cultivation takes place during the two seasons, winter and summer. Cotton is the primary
summer crop, which is exported to other countries. The other main crops include rice, corn,
wheat, fava beans and sorghum, sugarcane, sugar beets, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and so on.
Castor oil plant is also very essential for the agriculture in Egypt.
Farming in Egypt was confined to less than 3 percent of the total land area, because the country
falls within arid and hyperarid zones. About 90 percent of the agricultural area was concentrated
in the Delta, and the rest fell within a narrow ribbon along the Nile between Aswan and Cairo
(Upper Egypt) and a strip along the Mediterranean. The arable land was estimated by the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as being about 6.02 million feddans (1 feddan =
1.038 acres = .42 hectare) in 1987. This was the equivalent of about 0.12 feddan per capita, one
of the lowest in the world, and less than Bangladesh's 0.19. The warm weather, plentiful water,
and exceptionally fertile soil, however, enabled Egyptian farmers to practice double and multiple
cropping, which effectively doubled the arable area. Nevertheless, the relative scarcity of arable
land, coupled with, among other things, high population growth, made Egypt depend on external
sources for about half of its food supply in the late 1980s.
In spite of Egypt's dependence on foreign food supplies and agriculture's generally poor
performance over the 1980s, agriculture remained the key sector of the Egyptian economy and

its future development. In 1988 it contributed more than 20 percent of GDP and about 9 percent
of exports and employed more than 4 million workers, or about one-third of total employment.
Its significance would be even more pronounced if account were taken of the industries from
which it purchased, such as fertilizers and machinery, and those to which it sold, such as food
processing and textiles.
In addition to agriculture's declining growth rate, a social crisis ensued in the countryside,
manifested in great inequalities and sporadic peasant rebellions. Reforming the conditions of
agriculture fell after 1952 to the Free Officers. The new regime sought to carry out the task
through extensive intervention in the sector to the point where the state was described as the
silent partner; examination of state policy vis--vis agriculture is, therefore, a prerequisite for
understanding the evolution of the sector. The state implemented land-reform programs,
extended and altered the irrigation system, reclaimed new land, and regulated input and output
prices as well as land use. Carrying out agricultural controls was entrusted to the rural
cooperatives. The controls continued and were modified under Sadat and were gradually being
relaxed under Mubarak. The results of state intervention were often mixed, both economically
and socially.

Climate Change : Impact on Agriculture


Egypt does not have any specific plan to deal with the effects of climate change and global
warming on its water resources and its share of the Nile River, said Mosad Qutb, director of the
Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate at the Center for Agricultural Research.
In a press conference held by the Near East Foundation and Center for Development Services to
discuss climate change and its effects on health and water, Qutb emphasized that the scenarios
posited by academics are only speculative.
Some of these scenarios, such as a rise in temperature may be beneficial for Egypt, as it will
increase the evaporation rate which will in turn increase precipitation at the headwaters of the
Nile and potentially increase Egypts water share by 20 percent.

However, other scenarios posit that a temperature increase will adversely affect rainfall patterns
resulting in a loss of between 70 and 80 percent of Egypts water share.
Qutb described both possibilities as disastrous, explaining that an increase in Egypts share of
water by 20 percent would overload the High Dam in Aswan, whereas a decrease in its water
share by 70 to 80 percent would mean the end of agriculture in Egypt.
Qutb stressed that Egypt is one of the states that will be most affected by climate change, and
that Egypt has recently witnessed hot spells followed by cold spells, which have negatively
affected agricultural production.
Qutb said farmers require agricultural planning and consultation to confront these changes
successfully.

Food Gap
In 1960 Egypt was self-sufficient in almost all basic food commodities, with the exception of
wheat, of which the country had a self-sufficiency ratio (domestic production in relation to
consumption) of 70 percent. The self-sufficiency ratio declined dramatically for most products
during the 1970s and 1980s, and economists began to speak of a serious food gap in Egypt. Food
security, in the sense of adequate production and provision of food to consumers at relatively low
prices, also became a linchpin of agricultural and development policies.
Food gap data were difficult to ascertain, especially because public-sector food imports often
bypassed customs. By the end of the 1980s, the self-sufficiency ratio was only around 20 percent
for wheat, lentils, and edible oil. The major basic staple for which Egypt did not rely on external
supply sources was rice. The country also produced most of the poultry and eggs it consumed.
On the whole, it imported more than one-half of the food consumed, and food imports made up
about one-quarter of total imports. Meanwhile, agricultural exports, mainly cotton, were
declining, and Egypt was transformed from a net agricultural exporter to a net importer. Most
worrisome, both financially and politically, was the wheat gap: wheat was the basic staple of the
Egyptian diet. Some of the external wheat supply came in the form of aid, especially from the

United States, which donated about 10 percent to 20 percent of wheat consumed. But food aid
was not a secure source because of the volatility of politics, and, in any case, the share of food
aid dropped as the country's consumption grew.
Moreover, food subsidies to consumers imposed severe strains on the budget deficit. The debtridden government faced difficulties finding creditors to finance food imports, and rising world
food commodity prices may have added as much as US$600 million to wheat imports alone in
1989. Food shortages were reported in 1988 and 1989, including such basic items as tea, sugar,
and oil.
The drop in food self-sufficiency was attributed, on the demand side, to the rising demand caused
by high rates of population growth, the rapid rise of incomes in the 1970s, and subsidized prices,
and, on the supply side, to the slow growth of agricultural yields. Egyptians consumed annually
less than 110 kilograms per capita of wheat in 1960. In the 1980s, the wheat supply was enough
to provide 175 to 200 kilograms per capita, compared with a world average of less than 60 to 75
kilograms per capita. Some of this went to chicken and cattle feed because the low prices made it
economical for farmers and households to substitute wheat for other fodder. Daily food
consumption increased from 2,307 calories per capita in the period 1961 to 1963, to 3,313
calories per capita from 1984 to 1986, and from 62.5 grams per capita of protein to 81.1 grams
per capita over the same period. These averages put the Egyptian diet directly below that of
developed countries. But not all segments of the population benefited to the same extent. For
example, a sample survey of 6,300 urban and rural families in FY 1981 found that the daily per
capita caloric intake was 1,500 for the lowest 17 percent and more than 3,500 for the highest 18
percent; the distribution of protein intake was even more skewed. A 1986 study done for the
United Nations International Labour Organisation recommended that, to avoid further
deterioration of the diet of the poor, the prices of basic staples should not be raised.
Even though its contribution to GDP has declined considerably in the last 15 years, from 25.6
percent in 1985-86 to 17 percent in 1999, agriculture remains a significant contributor to Egypt's
economy, accounting for 20 percent of commodity exports. In 1998, according to the CIA World
Factbook for 2000, 40 percent of the labor force was employed in the agriculture sector.

Cotton has been the country's largest agricultural export product for many years. The proportion
of land cultivated with cotton has dropped significantly over the last 4 decades, from 924,000
hectares in 1962 to 227,000 hectares in 2000-01. For most of the century, cotton has been heavily
subsidized by the government. These subsidies, however, were lifted in the mid-1990s and, as a
result of higher cultivation costs, cotton exports have dropped from 121,500 metric tons in 199394 to only 45,000 metric tons in 1996-97.
In an attempt to reverse this trend, the government moved to raise the purchase price of cotton
above international market levels. This was coupled with a move to import lower-grade cotton in
March 1996 to allow for the export of better-quality cotton, and the full liberalization of the
cotton trade in 1998-99. Higher price incentives have led to increased production and higher
export deliveries, but the cotton trade is threatened by dwindling acreage.
Wheat and rice outputs have grown dramatically since the early 1990s, particularly since 1994
when all subsidies for fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides were lifted. The result has been selfsufficiency in several important commodities. Today, 95 percent of the wheat and rice crops are
used to satisfy domestic consumption but, despite increased output, Egypt continues to be a large
importer of food, especially agricultural products. Imports of wheat rose by 8 percent in 1996-97
and have generally accounted for more than a quarter of total imports.
Egypt's agricultural sector remains one of the most productive in the world, despite the small
area of arable land and irregular and insufficient water supplies. Farmers do not have to pay for
water used in irrigation. Since the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile river, the sector's
development has been hindered by the problems of waterlogged soil and soil with a high salt
content. Drainage efforts have proved insufficient to counter the harmful effects of these 2
factors to the sector's performance. Since the mid-1980s, the government has attempted to
reclaim the desert for cultivation, and has managed to successfully reclaim some 1 million acres
of desert. Plans are underway to reclaim an additional 3.5 million acres by the year 2017 with the
South Valley Development project near Lake Nasser. These efforts, however, are countered by
the fast pace of urban and industrial expansion, which has been claiming an average of 31,000
acres a year.

Map of Egypt

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