The Canada Egypt Business Council (CEBC) and the Egyptian Council for Sustainable Development (ECSD) hosted a panel discussion featuring H.E. Dr. Adel El Beltagy, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. Titled “Egypt’s Agricultural Future in Light of Current Challenges”, the discussion was attended by H.E Amre Mousa, H.E Dr. Hassan Younes, Dr. Amr Ezzat Salama, Dr. Adly Hussein, as well as CEBC’s and ECSD’s esteemed members, guests, businessmen and reporters.

Mr. Maged Menshawy, Chairman and CEO, Manapharma and CEBC member of the board also Mr. Mokhtar Abou Basha, Chairman, MABA Group and member of CEBC were sharing the panel.

Highlighting Egypt’s rich agricultural history in his opening remarks, Eng. Motaz Raslan said “Agriculture has always been the keyword and the main pillar of the Egyptian civilization’s economy along the ages starting from the pharaohs who started the agricultural calendar, until modern times which witnessed the establishment of the Aswan High Dam”.

Raslan then proceeded to point that the agriculture sector is facing major challenges including limited surface area that doesn’t exceed 3.5% of Egypt’s total land area, climate change, and financial crisis among other challenges.

Minister El Beltagy assumed the floor following the Chairman and showcased to the audience the vitality of the agricultural sector to Egypt and its people where it contributes to the income and livelihood of 52% of the population. He outlined the challenges of the agricultural current stand where physical pressures such as climate change and global increase in temperature lead to the deterioration of food production on a global scale. The also projected rising seawater level is threatening the Egyptian Delta and that could lead to huge losses as well as forced migrations.

In his speech, El Beltagy addressed the two major goals for agricultural sustainable development-increase in food growing to decrease the current food gap in the market, and exporting food products.

He debunked recent popular opinions calling for growing food in order to only achieve local food security. Citing it as an incorrect strategy, El Beltagy said that exports coming from the agricultural sector could reach 40 billion Egyptian Pounds per year and that it is important to pursue both goals simultaneously.

In order to move forward with agriculture in Egypt El Beltagy noted that the focus should be on using the new tools of science and technologies to implement new projects. These innovative tools include remote sensing, biotechnology/genetic engineering, simulation modeling, information technology, artificial intelligence, the use of renewable energy, and nanotechnology.

In explaining the new strategy for agricultural development, El Beltagy explained that the ministry divided agricultural land in Egypt into five agrological zones: West Delta, Middle Delta, East Delta, Middle Egypt and Upper Egypt. Each zone has its own strategies and priorities due to the variety of agricultural environment, population and other variations in topography.

The strategic goals for agricultural development to be in place by the year 2030 were discussed as well. These are: The sustainable use for natural agricultural resources, the improvement of agricultural productivity for land and water, increasing the securing of strategic food products, enabling the agricultural investment environment, supporting the agricultural products in competitive local and international markets, and improving the livelihood of the rural population.

While El Beltagy outlined past projects and strategies implemented in the past few years, he presented the latest agricultural national project, aiming to maximize five million feddans.

Over the duration of ten years in order to complete, the project will provide ten million cubic meters of irrigation using laser leveling as well as other modern techniques. Besides this national project, there are plans taking place over three phases in order to reclaim four million feddans of land.

The floor was then opened for a questions session where important topics were raised regarding the financing and timeline of major agricultural projects, as well as other vital topics such as the future of one of Egypt’s most prized crop-Egyptian cotton.