When the going gets tough, does the food get going? Mai Samih wonders To the 40-year-old woman who chose to with hold her name , putting food on the table is a daily struggle. Being a mother of 10, and having a bedridden husband didn't make it any easier for the factory worker. She has to provide 66 loaves of bread each day. Her monthly salary of LE300 hardly covers her needs so she works as a maid for LE5 a day. "Everyday I have to pay LE3 to buy enough bread to feed my children. In the morning I have to pay LE2 for a plate of beans and LE1 for a plate of taamiya and another LE1 for a packet of tea." As for lunch and dinner, the rapid increase in food prices was an extra burden that led her to cut down on the little food she could afford to begin with. One kilo of rice now costs LE3.75 instead of LE1.30 in 2005, oil prices doubled and so did the price of lentils. Dinner would either be half a kilo of potatoes or rice. "If my employer does not give me my share of meat every day we eat meat only once a week." As for her husband's health condition that requires chicken in his daily diet, she manages to give him a quarter of a chicken daily from her kind neighbours. Like many Egyptians stuck beneath the poverty line, she was left with her back against the wall. Fuul (bean) and taamiya restaurant owners also complained that since January the prices of the ingredients of a sandwich of fuul or taamiya have increased 20 per cent, causing a 30 per cent decrease in the sales of sandwiches. This is a further burden on the ordinary Egyptian citizen who depends on " fuul and taamiya " for his three meals. Moreover, according to a 2007 report entitled What Do Egyptians Eat of the Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre, Egyptians living in rural areas spend almost 50 per cent of their average annual expenditure on food and beverages, as opposed to those living in urban areas that spend some 40 per cent. The higher the standard of living of the family, the less, percentage- wise, they spend on food. In addition, 60 per cent of our calories are obtained from wheat and rice, as opposed to the seven per cent calories from meat. Professor of Economics at the American University in CairoDoha Abdelhamid explained this phenomenon to the Weekly in scientific terms. "We have an economic theory called the Malthusian Trap." She said that the population will keep on growing in geometric or exponential terms whereas natural resources grow arithmetically. "In the end the world will collapse. Prices are growing more than products are increasing." This is somewhat echoed in what economist Michael Todaro explains in his book Economic Developmen t published in 2003. "In the 1990s the situation continued to deteriorate in sub- Saharan Africa, with deep declines in food consumption and widespread famine. In both Asia and Africa over 60 per cent of the population barely got minimum caloric requirements necessary to maintain adequate health." He explains this by saying, "the more likely explanation is found in the enormous developing imbalance in world income distribution. 766 million people in poor countries are without access to health services, almost 1 billion do not have access to safe drinking water. 158 million children under age 5 [those who managed to live that long] are malnourished." Todaro believes that the main reason behind malnutrition is poverty rather than food production. According to the Human Development Report 2007/8, three per cent of Egyptians lived on less than $1 a day in 2005. According to Abdelhamid, "we are reducing trade barriers. Customs are being reduced. We are not fixing our prices like we used to during the socialist regime of 50 years ago. The difference between the international price of the good or service is that it used to be subsidised by the government; now we do not do that so we are importing inflation. A sack of wheat used to cost LE25; now it is LE100," lamented Enaba, a peasant who bakes bread for a living. This inflation has affected her lifestyle. Aiming to support her seven siblings, she is paid LE5 daily to bake. Since the bread crisis, she couldn't manage without her son, a driver, who earns LE10 a day, and supports her now. "I have to buy bread for LE3 every morning and pay LE2 for foul. As for dinner I pay LE3 for bread and LE1 for cheese. Now, we don't have dinner every day anyway." Cooking oil is an essential ingredient to a large sector of underprivileged Egyptians who fry most of their vegetables and who lack meat and chicken in their diet. Soya could be a cheap alternative. Abdelhamid praises this soya trend as economically and pocket friendly. "Soya is used because it is a bit cheaper." Nutritionist Eyris Fouad stresses that not only is soya a cheap source of nutrition but it is also a healthy one. "Soya is a source of vegetable protein which is healthy for everybody. It also contains carbohydrates. Soya beans could also be a substitute for animal proteins," Fouad told the Weekly. However, Fouad says there are many healthy components that people cannot afford. "Nowadays there is an 80 per cent increase in the prices of the ingredients of a plate of green salad. The irony of the situation is that we are an agricultural country. The traditional meal ' foul and taamiya' has doubled in price; even yellow lentils have become expensive," added Fouad. Secretary-General of the grocery department of the Chamber of Commerce Salah Abdel-Aziz explained that, "the products most in demand are oil, butter, lentils, beans, spaghetti and wheat. There is no household that can do without oil and flour. We import more than 60 per cent of our wheat, beans, and lentils, although in the 1970s we were a major producer of lentils and beans," he stated. Since neither the grocery department nor the Chamber of Commerce are executive authorities, there is nothing they can do about it. Abdelhamid believes that civil society should take action, while she acknowledged that currently the government is revisiting the minimum wage and an increase of salaries is being reviewed, that a government-citizen pact is the solution. "The government should provide the farmers with good high-yield seeds as well as good fertilisers so that the farmers do not carry the burden of high costs. They should be available at an official set price." A couple of weeks ago MP Abdel-Rehim El-Ghoul brought this issue up as farmers were losing their jobs. " Prices of fertilisers have increased steeply. The government should cut a deal with the farmers to supply local products such as wheat, rice, beans, and cotton provided that the prices don't go up. The government should also import the products that are unjustifiably increasing in price provided that it ships these products under the auspices of the commercial attaché."
