October 26, 2022

 

Egypt plans to plant wheat in Congo

Egypt plans to plant wheat and other strategic crops in the Republic of Congo to cover its food needs following an acute water shortage in Egypt, Al-Monitor reported.

 

According to a friendship agreement between Egypt and the Republic of the Congo, 20,000 hectares (48,000 feddans) of arable land in the city of Mossendjo have been given over to Egypt by the Congolese government to be planted with crops like wheat and rice, Sherif Al-Gabali, head of the parliamentary African Affairs Committee, announced on October 17.

 

Based on the agreement, 40% of the harvested crops will go to the Congo, and 60% will go to Egypt. Sherif Al-Gabali said the offered lands are very fertile, and since Congo is a country with plenty of water, irrigation is not a problem there.

 

Ahmed Hamdy Bakr, deputy assistant foreign minister for central African affairs, said a concern for Egypt's national security is agricultural investment in Africa, adding that African agricultural investment benefits Egypt's efforts to achieve food security.

 

The world's biggest importer of wheat is Egypt. Egypt consumes up to 21 million tonnes of wheat annually, of which 13 million tonnes are imported, according to the national statistics agency CAPMAS.

 

However, because 80% of Egypt's wheat imports come from these two nations, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has significantly disrupted the country's wheat supply, forcing Cairo to look for alternatives.

 

However, experts dismissed the initiative, citing the Congo's hot climate and a lack of skilled farmers as the main barriers to growing wheat there.

 

Nader Noureddine, a professor of water resources and land reclamation at Cairo University, said the Congo Republic, as well as the rest of the equatorial region, have weak overall wheat cultivation.

 

He said cold climate regions like Russia, Canada, the United States, and Argentina are where wheat is grown. In Egypt, wheat is grown in the Nile Delta, whereas it produces poorly in the hotter Upper Egypt.

 

Former Egyptian irrigation minister Mohamed Nasr al-Din Allam said the lack of skilled farmers, according, could jeopardise efforts to cultivate wheat in the Republic of Congo.

 

He said that efforts to increase wheat production to feed the nation's expanding population are hampered by Egypt's water shortages.

 

-      Al-Monitor