Egypt can’t achieve self-sufficiency in wheat

The head of the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee in the Egyptian Senate Abdel-Salam el-Gabaly announced Tuesday that Egypt cannot achieve complete self-sufficiency in wheat.

In televised statements, Gabaly explained that Egypt consumes 20 million tons of wheat annually, while the local production is about 10 million tons and about 10 million tons are imported.

International prices have doubled due to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis in the recent period, he explained, leading the Ministry of Agriculture to increase local prices to match global prices.

Gabaly noted that the challenges Egypt faces now is that the self-sufficiency rate is about 50 percent and “what we ask of the Ministry of Agriculture is to raise the self-sufficiency rate.”