Egypt targets 10mln ton wheat harvest amid yield gains, land reclamation push
Egypt expects to harvest 10 million tonnes of wheat this year, up from 9 million in 2023, driven by improved crop yields and ambitious land reclamation efforts, Agriculture Minister Alaa Farouk told Reuters late on Wednesday.
He said 3.1175 million feddans (about 1.30 million hectares) have been cultivated this season — slightly lower than the 3.5 million feddans announced earlier by the planning ministry and 3.2 million feddans in 2024 (1.34 million hectares), suggesting a possible decline in total wheat area.
Farmers have told Reuters that wheat has become less profitable compared to crops like beet, whose area increased from 500,000 feddans (210,000 hectares) to 700,000 feddans (294,000 hectares) this year.
The government plans to buy 4-5 million tonnes of local wheat and import about 6 million tonnes to provide heavily subsidised bread for over 69 million Egyptians.
Farouk said newer high-yield wheat strains developed by the Agricultural Research Center have raised productivity by 7-8.5%.
"This is vertical expansion, and horizontal expansion is coming," he said.
That horizontal expansion is led by the military-linked Mostakbal Misr for Sustainable Development, which plans to reclaim 4 million feddans across the country.
Farouk said some of that land is ready for production and the rest will follow in the next two years, offering major opportunities for agricultural investment.
Mostakbal Misr, recently tasked with wheat imports, is also developing infrastructure and growing crops tailored to local consumption, exports and agri-processing, Farouk said.
Farouk declined to comment on revenue flows from its operations, referring the matter to the finance ministry.
Reuters was unable to immediately reach the finance minister for comment.
Farouk added the government is studying a potential rise in local fertilizer prices. Urea and nitrate fertilizers cost around 9,500 Egyptian pounds ($185) per tonne to produce but are sold at a subsidized 4,500 ($87.63). Export prices reach up to 20,000 pounds ($389.48), Farouk said.
Fertilizer firms, which are obliged to sell 55% of output at a discount in exchange for subsidised natural gas, have pushed for price hikes.
Separately, Egypt is overhauling its underperforming commodities exchange to enable direct crop trading, which would require regulation amendments which Farouk said are expected to be completed this year.
$1 = 51.35 Egyptian pounds
1 feddan = 0.42 hectare
(Reporting by Ahmed Hagagy, Writing by Mohamed Ezz, editing by Ed Osmond)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
11 minutes ago
- Middle East Eye
Exclusive: Greece to lobby Egypt against Haftar endorsing Turkey-Libya maritime deal
Greece is expected to ask Egypt to intervene to dissuade the government in eastern Libya backed by General Khalifa Haftar from ratifying a maritime agreement with Turkey, Middle East Eye can reveal. Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis is expected to raise the issue with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty on Wednesday, two regional officials with knowledge of the matter told Middle East Eye. Libya's internationally recognised government in Tripoli signed a contentious maritime demarcation agreement with Turkey in 2019 that ignored Greece's claims to exclusive economic zones, including via major Greek islands like Crete and Rhodes. Greece countered that maritime agreement the next year by signing its own deal with Egypt. Haftar-controlled eastern Libya has opposed Turkey's ambitions for years and is backed by Cairo along with the UAE. Any move by eastern Libya to endorse Turkey's position would represent a sea change for the eastern Mediterranean, where regional actors hope to develop potentially lucrative natural gas deposits. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters It would be a major boost for Ankara's bid to assert itself as the dominant maritime power in the region as it would put all of Libya's factions in line with Turkey's claims. If the deal is pursued it could reawaken maritime tensions in the region which saw Greece and Turkey edge close to conflict in the summer of 2020. Greece and Cyprus are already alarmed. But any recognition of Turkey's maritime claims could also irk Israel. Greece, Cyprus and Israel want to develop gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean and build a subsea electrical inter-connector, but those projects have stalled. If Haftar-controlled eastern Libya ratifies the maritime deal, it could provide cover to Syria's new government to strike its own accord with Ankara that includes Northern Cyprus, a breakaway region whose independence is recognised only by Turkey, one of the regional officials told MEE. Saddam Haftar opens dialogue with Turkey Eastern Libya would also find itself in direct confrontation with the Egypt-Greece maritime agreement. Cairo did not recognise all of Greece's claims to exclusive economic zones via its islands in that 2020 agreement, but a wide swath of it contradicts the Turkey-Tripoli deal. The Tobruk-based Libyan House of Representatives in June established a committee to review the deal Tripoli endorsed. Israel's Netanyahu lobbying US against F-35 sale to Turkey, sources say Read More » Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for Haftar-controlled eastern Libya to consider signing a maritime deal with Turkey. The shift represents just how fast the region is reordering itself. In 2019, Haftar launched a months-long offensive to take Tripoli with the backing the UAE, Egypt and Russia. Turkey successfully intervened to defend its ally, sending mercenaries, soldiers and drones. But Khalifa Haftar is now courting Turkish support. In April, his son and potential successor, Saddam, paid a landmark visit to Ankara. Libya's eastern and western governments are jockeying for influence and access to the country's oil riches - the largest in Africa. Greece was able to lean on Egypt in 2020 to counter Turkey because ties between Ankara and Cairo were strained. Libya was just one flashpoint in the relationship. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi came to power after leading a 2013 military coup, that overthrew Egypt's democratically elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi. He was an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As late as 2019, Erdogan refused to recognise Sisi's legitimacy. However, in recent years Ankara and Cairo have patched up ties. Any effort by Egypt to lobby eastern Libya against the Turkey deal could inflame tensions in the recently thawed relationship.
Al Etihad
24 minutes ago
- Al Etihad
Wall Street ticks higher as tech boost offsets economic worries
4 June 2025 19:00 (REUTERS)US stocks edged higher on Wednesday, as strength in technology shares offset declines driven by weak economic data that deepened concerns about the impact of the Trump administration's erratic trade US services sector contracted for the first time in nearly a year in May, while businesses paid higher input prices, a reminder that the economy was still at risk of experiencing a period of very slow growth and high ADP National Employment Report showed US private employers added the fewest number of workers in more than two years in May. Investors are awaiting Friday's nonfarm-payrolls data for more signs on how trade uncertainty is affecting the US labour doubled tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50% on Wednesday, the same day by which President Donald Trump wanted trading partners to make their best offers to avoid other punishing import levies from taking effect in early focus is squarely on tariff negotiations between Washington and its trading partners, with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to speak sometime this week as tensions simmer between the world's two biggest was the best month for the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq since November 2023, thanks to a softening of Trump's harsh trade stance and upbeat earnings S&P 500 remains less than 3% away from its record highs touched in joined a slew of other brokerages in raising its year-end price target for the S&P 500, pointing to easing trade uncertainty and expectations of normalised earnings growth in 10:36 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 88.09 points, or 0.20%, to 42,605.07, the S&P 500 gained 17.36 points, or 0.29%, to 5,987.73 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 58.41 points, or 0.31%, to 19, of the 11 major S&P 500 sub-sectors rose, led by communication services with a 1.2% rise, while information technology stocks gained 0.4%.Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise rose 1.1% as demand for the company's artificial-intelligence servers and hybrid cloud segment helped it beat estimates for second-quarter revenue and rose 2.2% after the chip manufacturer announced plans to increase its investments to $16 dropped 3.8%. The electric-vehicle maker's sales dropped for the fifth straight month in big European Fargo shares rose 1.2% after the U.S. Federal Reserve removed a $1.95 trillion asset cap imposed in 2018 following years of of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike slumped 4.7% after it forecast quarterly revenue below Tree fell 10.2% after the discount store operator forecast second-quarter adjusted profit would be as much as 50% lower than a year ago due to tariff-driven issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.02-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.41-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 19 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 63 new highs and 23 new lows.
Zawya
an hour ago
- Zawya
Egypt's net foreign assets retreat in April after March jump
Egypt's net foreign assets (NFAs) fell by $1.5 billion in April, central bank data showed on Wednesday, retreating from March, when the approval of the fourth review of the country's IMF programme sparked a jump. NFAs slid to the equivalent of $13.54 billion, from $15.08 billion at the end of March, according to Reuters calculations based on official central bank currency exchange rates. In March, NFAs jumped by $4.9 billion after the International Monetary Fund approved the disbursement to Egypt of $1.2 billion after completing its review of the country's $8 billion economic reform programme. The IMF also approved a request for a $1.3 billion arrangement under the IMF's resilience and sustainability facility. The approvals led to an inflow of foreign investment in Egyptian pound treasury bills, bankers said. Egypt had been using foreign assets, which include assets held by both the central bank and commercial banks, to help prop up its currency since as long ago as September 2021. Net foreign assets turned negative in February 2022 and only returned to positive territory in May last year. Foreign assets increased in April at both the central bank and commercial banks, while foreign liabilities fell at both as well. (Reporting by Patrick Werr; Editing by Alex Richardson)
