Egypt and Sudan Join Forces on Wheat Growth

From Garoweonline.com

Africa
Egypt and Sudan Join Forces on Wheat Growth
By
May 13, 2008 - 6:43:10 AM

In a move aimed at mitigating the hardships of the global food crisis, E gypt has announced plans to join forces with its neighbor Sudan to grow wheat together.

The countries plan to allocate some two million acres of land near their border for wheat fields, according to Business Daily Africa.

E gypt has been hit hard by the global food crisis, with nearly a fifth of the country's population living below the lower poverty line on less than one dollar a day.

Several people have been killed in food riots and in bread lines in E gypt over the past two months as prices of staple products such as bread and wheat have risen, and bakeries are not meeting the high demand.

Also, bakers are selling subsidized bread for a profit on the black market, further exacerbating the crisis.

E gyptian Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza has announced that land close to the joint border town, Wadi Halfa, will be allocated for cultivating wheat and help both countries be self-sufficient in growing wheat.

The project, the details of which will be hammered out later this month, will enable the growth of two million tons of wheat every year, and save on costs usually added onto imports, such as freight and insurance.

Sudan is not as large a consumer of wheat as E gypt, because in many parts of the country, and especially in rural areas, the staple cereals are sorghum and millet.

The E gyptian government is being cautious about the notion of putting up the price of bread, especially when the specter of the 1977 bread riots still looms. Around 70 people were killed in those riots when the government tried to remove subsidies from basic commodities.

The current world food crisis has emerged from a number of factors, including the rise in oil and energy prices, the economic boom in nations such as India and China, which is increasing demand, climate and weather-related events such as droughts and floods, and competition between food and fuel, where more land and agricultural crops are being used for bio-fuels rather than for food.

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