The Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza said the government will soon announce new measures to help increase the number of livestock farms in order to secure local meat production. Meanwhile, Anwar Darwish, a professor of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, called for a national meat boycott for a week so as to force producers to lower prices. "I will form an association whose task will be to fight price rises of meat and other foodstuffs," he said. Meat prices are expected to go down in the coming few weeks as shipments of imported meat will arrive on the local market, said meat producer Saad el-Haiany. "Also meat consumption goes down during the summer," he said, adding that Egypt could be self-sufficient in meat production if the government provided better credit to local livestock farms. Livestock and fresh meat should be inspected in the source countries before Egypt imports it, said veterinarian Sami Taha. "The Animal Health Research Institute should take part in the inspections, as it was this institute that discovered foot and mouth disease in imported camels recently," he said. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
