Bread made from both barleycorn and wheat might be the solution for the current bread crisis, reports Mona El-Fiqi In an attempt to solve escalating bread shortages, the National Research Centre (NRC) conducted a study on a new kind of bread using barleycorn. The study, undertaken by nutrition specialists at NRC, changed the composition of bread to 25 per cent barleycorn and 75 per cent of wheat flour. While cheaper to make, the new loaves are also higher in nutritional value than those made solely from wheat flour. NRC Chairman Hani El-Nazer explained that barleycorn was chosen because it can be easily cultivated in Egypt. Moreover, its production costs are low in comparison to corn or wheat crops, and barley-wheat bread is quite tasty, according to El-Nazer. A recent NRC press release further stated that one more advantage of barleycorn is that it can be cultivated in desert areas, since it does not require much water for irrigation. Although the study is still in progress, when it is completed NRC will send its recommendations to the Ministry of Social Solidarity to see how they can be widely applied. Already, the NRC is producing the new bread and selling it to its staff to ease the burden of the bread crisis, and decrease demand on wheat flour bread. Egypt's total production of wheat is 6.5 million tonnes per year, while consumption is double at more than 12 million tonnes -- used in making 100 per cent wheat flour bread. Magdi El-Sayed, head of the Food Industries Research Division at NRC, believes that if barleycorn is used in producing bread, total wheat consumption will drop to 7.2 million tonnes annually. El-Sayed added that the land areas currently cultivated by barleycorn are estimated at 0.5 million feddans, producing one million tonnes of barleycorn. According to the study, the land currently cultivated by wheat is between two to three million feddans which produce between 5.4 and 7.1 million tonnes of wheat. To overcome the wheat shortage, the study recommends, the cultivation of no less than one million feddans of barleycorn are needed to produce 2.1 million tonnes of the crop. The study aims to help the country achieve self- sufficiency -- a crucial issue at a time when the international prices of wheat and other food products are soaring. Consequently, bread, a food staple for Egyptians, is taking a direct hard hit.
