Agriculture
From The Report: Egypt 2014
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A major employer and contributor to GDP and export earnings, Egypt’s agriculture sector thrives despite limitations imposed by geography. The country has been one of the breadbaskets of a range of great empires, and the fertile Nile Delta is one of the region’s most important agricultural areas. Agriculture, forestry and fishing generated 14.5% of GDP in 2013, making it the third-largest contributor behind extractive industries and manufacturing. The agriculture sector grew by 3% in the fiscal year 2013 (July-June), edging very slightly up from 2.9% in 2012, according to Bank Audi. The bank expects a similar figure for the 2014 fiscal year, once data are in, following 2.9% growth in the early months. Egypt will continue to balance agricultural production for its large, growing population, and export-oriented output, like citrus, that is an important earner of foreign currency and attracts foreign investment. Investors should see growing opportunities in Egypt’s moves to boost output by increasing desert cultivation and yields, alongside efforts to consolidate and improve infrastructure.

This chapter contains an interview with Adel El Beltagy, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Feeding economic growth by focusing on farms and farmers
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A major employer and contributor to GDP and export earnings, Egypt’s agriculture sector thrives despite limitations imposed by geography. The country has been one of the breadbaskets of a range of great empires, and the fertile Nile Delta is one of the region’s most important agricultural areas. As demand rises from Egypt’s growing population, the country – the world’s single biggest wheat importer – is working to balance the desire for greater self-sufficiency with increasing opportunities…

Interview

OBG talks to Adel El Beltagy, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
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Interview:Adel El Beltagy What can be done to boost domestic production in line with rising demand for staple commodities? ADEL EL BELTAGY: To improve food security we need to increase productivity in a sustainable way through advanced technology in breeding, biotechnology and the usage of proper agro-management techniques. We have already achieved self-sufficiency for some crops such as rice. We are likewise attempting to increase the productivity of maize in Upper and Lower Egypt by focusing…

Analysis

Long-term projects create arable tracts from arid land
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Egypt’s single biggest desert agricultural development is the New Valley Project, better known as Toshka ( strictly speaking one of New Valley’s constituent parts), which lies close to the Sudanese border to the west of the Nile, deep in Upper Egypt. Toshka, intended to be a “second Nile Valley”, covers some 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) and is irrigated by a combination of ground water and the 50-km Sheikh Zayed Canal from Lake Nasser, a reservoir on the Nile created by the Aswan High Dam. The…

Analysis

Naval academy: The expanding citrus industry seeks to add value to output
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One of the world’s main producers of oranges, Egypt is also the second-biggest exporter of the fruit. Oranges account for 30% of fruit production and 65% of citrus production, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). Production Rising Egypt was forecast to produce around 2.5m tonnes of oranges in marketing year (MY) 2013/14, up 120,000 tonnes or 5% from MY2012/13, the FAS said in its annual report on the country’s citrus industry. This boost comes…