Egypt's small farms play big role in food supply but struggle to survive

SINDIYUN (Egypt) • Egyptian smallholders grow nearly half of the country's crops, a lifeline role that is increasingly important after grain imports were stalled by war in Ukraine, but they are struggling to survive.

Despite their crucial role providing food for the North African nation's 103 million people, smallholders are cash-strapped and indebted, frequently selling their harvests at a loss.

"The farmer is dead, trampled," said farmer Zakaria Aboueldahab, brewing tea on his rented plot of wheat and onions in Qalyubia, 30km north of Cairo.

"I'm trying to sell my onion harvest but I can't find a market," he said, the remnants of his crop scattered across the soil. "I just want to break even. I don't know how I'm going to pay rent."

His onions would sell in Egypt, but financing, marketing and infrastructure hurdles create massive gaps between supply and demand.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), small farms are the "primary producers" of food for domestic consumption in Egypt. Farmers cultivating less than 12ha - an area the size of a football pitch - till 35 per cent of arable land. Yet they produce some 47 per cent of Egypt's field crops, the FAO calculates.

Larger farms focus more on exports - a dynamic that came to a head when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Egypt, the world's leading importer of wheat, relied on Russia and Ukraine for 80 per cent of its imports, providing the flour for Egypt's traditional flat bread.

Ordinary Egyptians eat bread at almost every meal, and Egypt's wheat farmers ramped up production to 40 per cent of the country's needs. "Without the 40 per cent of wheat that we produce domestically", the consequences of the war "would be much worse", said rural sociologist Saker al-Nour.

In March, Cairo ordered farmers to grow wheat, calling the "compulsory delivery" orders a "patriotic duty". By June, farmers had provided over 3.5 million tonnes, according to the Supply Ministry, over half the domestic supply goal to August, and equal to the total amount supplied last year.

To encourage farmers to grow wheat, the government had set domestic prices higher than imports.

But the unprecedented surge in global prices undermined that.

"Now I owe money to the pesticide guy, to the fertiliser guy," Mr Aboueldahab said. "So if someone comes along and bids a low price, what am I supposed to do?"

One solution is for smallholders to join together and harness the power of technology.

Entrepreneur Hussein Abou Bakr launched a start-up finance firm called Mozare3, which offers farmers financing solutions and agronomy support. It also helps farmers "become a bloc", in the absence of effective local cooperatives and sets prices "as a form of protection" against market fluctuations.

With illiteracy among smallholders at 32 per cent, according to the FAO, offline village associations are necessary. These associations could, for example, communicate extreme weather events quickly and directly to farmers whose crops are at risk.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE