Suddenly self-sufficiency in wheat production is a strategic goal. But wasn't it always, asks Mohamed El-Sayed Once the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, today Egypt struggles to grow half of the wheat it consumes each year. From ancient exporter, Egypt is now one of the world's largest importers of wheat. For two decades at least the issue of self- sufficiency in wheat production has exercised commentators, though their interest tends to be sporadic, excited only in times of shortage or when international prices spin out of control. It should come as no surprise, then, given the queues that grow ever longer outside kiosks selling subsidised bread, that writers should once again be spilling ink on the subject. The formulas they propose have a familiar ring: Egypt must stop counting on imports and instead increase local production so that supply meets demand. They are calls, though, that were long ignored by agricultural policy- makers though the government has recently decided, some would argue belatedly, to try and encourage farmers to cultivate more wheat in what seems to be a desperate attempt to increase production against a backdrop of spiralling international prices. The cost of wheat on the open market has more or less tripled in the last year, forcing the government to offer farmers between LE380 and LE390 per ardebb (150kg) this season, as opposed to the LE100 to LE200 paid in the past. When President Hosni Mubarak posed for photographers in a wheat field during a visit last week to the newly reclaimed Al-Ouwainat area in Egypt's south west the symbolism was clear. It was also backed up by instructions from the president that the government and investors should work towards ensuring Egypt becomes self-sufficient in wheat. Why, though, has it taken so long for what is a basic food security issue to be acted upon? "The reason is that [the government] succumbed to the American administration's [pressures]," argues Sikina Fouad, who has spearheaded a nationwide media campaign over the past decade promoting self- sufficiency in wheat. "It was a means used by the Americans to undermine the Egyptian economy. [Former American Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger repeatedly said wheat was a political, not an agricultural, issue," she told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The Americans flooded the Egyptian market with cheap wheat, convincing the Egyptian government to adopt import based policies since they were cheaper than domestic cultivation. The government fell into the trap, failing to recognise the strategic importance of self-sufficiency," she says. Such conspiracy theories are popular with farmers. "It was crystal clear that our agricultural policy-makers succumbed in the past to American pressure aimed at preventing us from achieving self-sufficiency in order that we would become dependent on US imports," one farmer said. His opinion is widely shared. Fouad has little time for officials who claim Egypt has few realistic hopes of growing all the wheat it needs given limited water resources and an ever growing population: "It's a lame excuse. India, which was once one of the biggest consumers of wheat worldwide, used to face severe shortages and now they are exporting it." Ahmed El-Leithi, minister of agriculture from 2004 till the end of 2005 and currently a member of the People's Assembly, agrees with Fouad that self-sufficiency is possible. "If we increased the productivity of a feddan to 24 ardebb, and increase the land allocated to wheat to 4.5 million feddans, and supplement this with measures that will cut down on wastage and we would be growing all the wheat we need," he says. So if it's so simple why hasn't it happened? For more than two decades now, says El-Leithi, agricultural strategy has emphasised cash crops, especially strawberries and cantaloupes that, in theory at least, could be exported at a premium and the foreign currency they generate used to pay Egypt's wheat import bill. "This policy failed for simple reasons. The ministry failed to increase the land allocated to such crops sufficiently, and as a consequence they have not generated enough revenues to cover the spiralling cost of wheat on international markets." During his tenure at the Ministry of Agriculture El-Leithi launched a national campaign to increase wheat production. He submitted a comprehensive strategy aimed at achieving self-sufficiency to the prime minister and the president, warning of the consequences of ignoring the cultivation of such a strategic crop. "As a result," he says, "land cultivated with wheat increased from 2.5 to more than three million feddans in one season, and production from six to eight million tonnes." When he left his post, El-Leithi says, wheat production declined because "our wheat policies are confused". "The government should stop placing obstacles in the way of wheat farmers. There needs to be a consistent policy that is pursued regardless of who is at the helm of the ministry if we really want to achieve self- sufficiency." "Of course those who adopted this importing based policy in the past 25 years, i.e. [former minister of agriculture] Youssef Wali, intended to undermine the wheat crop," argues Fouad. "I don't blame America for destroying the Egyptian wheat production but those [Egyptian officials] who accepted to implement American-inspired policies. I have warned against the government's failure to treat the wheat crop as a national security issue. The wheat crisis that we are facing now is due to confused policies, and the insistence of former agriculture officials on destroying the crop." Asked whether the US had intervened in the past to change Egypt's wheat policy to prevent the country from achieving self- sufficiency, El-Leithi's reply was a classic "no comment".
