A high-tech attempt to ease Egypt’s grain drain

At the far corner of a faceless government building in Cairo an unusually high-tech attempt to stem Egypt’s waste-and-theft-riddled wheat market is quietly coming online this month. A dimly lit room awash with the soft glow of CCTV feeds from around the country, Blumberg Grain’s command and control center is the central nervous system of a fast-expanding network of grain storage facilities the company says will save Egypt nearly $2 billion in five years.

As Egypt begins its wheat harvest this month, storage systems from the grain logistics company will process and monitor about a quarter of the domestic crop for the first time.

If the government signs up for a second fleet of storage sites, a decision expected by May 1, Blumberg will handle the country’s entire crop by 2018.

“[The full system] will be able to save the Egyptian government approximately $550 million a year in wheat savings, value addition and additional labor benefits,” David Blumberg, CEO of Blumberg Grain Middle East and Africa, told Reuters.

“It is all monitored and evaluated from this command and control center,” he said, pointing to a monitor streaming live images from the interior of a steel hangar in the port city of Alexandria.

Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat but also a prolific squanderer of its own crop. About 3.5 million tons of the crop is procured by the government each year and much of it is stored in dilapidated open-air sites – known as “shounas” – that offer little protection against weather, pests and theft.