CAIRO - Eid El-Adha (the Greater Bairam) is less than a week away. During this feast, it is a religious tradition for rich families to slaughter lambs as a sacrifice and give much of the meat to the poor, who can't afford to buy it. The Feast of the Sacrifice commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail in response to a command from God, but God replaced Ismail with a sheep at the last moment, which was slaughtered in his stead. "We only eat meat in the four days of this Eid," says Om Ahmed, the wife of a bawwab (doorman). "Sometimes we try to buy it from one of the State-run cooperatives, and sometimes kind people give us meat." The meat from the sacrifice is mostly given away to others: one-third is eaten by the immediate family and relatives, one-third is given away to friends and one-third is donated to the poor. Some poor people wait for this annual occasion to buy meat from the State-run co-operatives, which sell the frozen meat for about half the price of the butchers' shops. One kilo of beef in the co-operatives cost LE25 (just over $4), while a kilo of veal costs around LE40 (nearly $7). This year the prices of the livestock have stunned not only the poor, but even middle-class families; meat has become something for the rich. The population keeps on growing and the price of the meat keeps on rising, so most people cannot afford it. "I can't sacrifice this year because lambs have become so expensive," Ahmed Nazmy, a pharmacist, said. "It is difficult for most Muslim Egyptians to afford the traditional requirements of Eid el-Adha, even if they are middle-class people," he added in an interview with the Egyptian Mail. Ahmed and his wife have just one child, and his monthly salary comes to LE1,500 (around $250). About 40 per cent of Egyptians live below the poverty line. In fact, this is not a 'feast problem', but it is a 'whole-year problem'. Many people can only afford meat once a month, while others can afford it just once a year! Meanwhile, the butchers usually put up the prices of lamb just before the sacrificial feast, putting most Egyptians in a critical position. One lamb costs about LE1,600 ($270), while one kilo of beef costs LE68 (more than $11), one kilo of veal LE85 (just over $14) and one kilo of mutton LE35 (nearly $6). Cheaper, frozen meat is imported from Sudan, Brazil and Ethiopia, selling for between LE25 and LE40 per kilo. According to the governmental statistics agency CAPMAS, vegetables prices soared 51 per cent in September, while meat and poultry prices rose by 28.6 per cent. The prices of vegetables prices have returned to normal, but not so the price of meat. It was expected that the price of meat would decrease after the Government arranged to import extra livestock from Sudan (where the meat is half the price of that in Egypt), along with agreements with counties like Ethiopia and Australia, but this hasn't happened. In the past few days, Egypt has received more than 200,000 sheep and cows from these countries. The traders make big money in the four-day feast, although they claim the fodder for their animals is terribly costly, which is why they raise their prices. "The international price of animal fodder has doubled this year," says Nader Nour Eddin, an agricultural economist. "Egypt imports a lot of fodder, which contributes to the high prices of meat." Nour Eddin said that, in 2005, the State-run co-operatives sold beef for $1 per kilo, but now they sell it for about $5; he blames the traders for this dramatic price rise. "Egypt is 65 per cent self-sufficient in beef and it imports the other 35 per cent from foreign countries," he explains. "The importation of beef contributes to the increase in the price of Egyptian beef."
