In a new chapter of Egypt’s recent push towards foreign investment in agriculture, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir received the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Eng Amin Abaza, on Thursday. Abaza arrived in Khartoum earlier, leading an Egyptian delegation to participate in the Food Security Conference for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, currently held in the Sudanese capital.
The meeting reviewed Egypt’s agricultural projects in Sudan and their future prospects. These plans include Egypt’s intention to embark on major agricultural ventures, cultivating two million feddans in Sudan’s Gezira region with crops such as maize, wheat, rice, and sugar beet. Both sides agreed to allow Egyptian companies to farm land in Sudan without the need to establish local partnerships, a first-of-its-kind agreement between the two countries.
Under this agreement, Egypt will be required to supply the agricultural inputs needed for the specified crops—including seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and machinery—at least two weeks before the planting season. Egyptian companies will also be permitted to secure agricultural loans from the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit or the Egyptian-Sudanese Bank.
Amid escalating global and domestic food crises, alongside ongoing concerns over water shortages and their impact on this vital sector, some see this Egyptian move as a step in the right direction. It could address local market needs that domestic production has failed to meet and revive the long-held Arab aspiration of turning Sudan into the breadbasket of the region—a dream left dormant for decades.
However, this optimism may merely reflect a pressing need for immediate solutions, regardless of the long-term consequences. From a broader macroeconomic perspective, such short-sighted moves risk falling into the trap of ‘live today, die tomorrow’.
Egypt’s agricultural sector has indeed reached a critical point, riddled with challenges: supply chain disruptions, water scarcity, and significant technological and scientific deficiencies, despite the presence of highly skilled Egyptian agricultural scientists. Cultivating land in Sudan, with its abundant water and fertile soil, has seemingly become the quicker, cheaper, and easier option.
Yet every pound diverted from Egypt to invest in Sudan’s agriculture represents a direct depletion of Egypt’s national economic resources, contributing to Sudan’s economy as foreign direct investment. Every grain of wheat imported back to Egypt widens an already substantial trade deficit. Every feddan cultivated by Sudanese farmers—who are higher-paid and more expensive than their Egyptian counterparts—translates into more unemployment and poverty among Egyptian farmers. These farmers, who once secured the nation’s food security, now find themselves jobless, swelling the ranks of Cairo’s pavement dwellers, desperate for work after being cast aside by the profession that once sheltered and sustained them.
While agricultural investment in its current form may seem more cost-effective in the short term from a microeconomic standpoint, directing such investment domestically, fortified by modern water-saving and productivity-enhancing technologies, would yield better results. This approach would reduce costs in the long run and address the plight of the Egyptian farmer, whose cries of despair over his inability to feed his children have gone unheard. A well-planned, inward-focused investment strategy would undoubtedly deliver more sustainable and secure returns for Egypt and its people in the not-too-distant future. Regrettably, however, this reflects the prevailing policy of liberalisation—liberalising everything but humanity.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.