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Is Egyptian government pushing farmers to stop growing wheat?

Complicated bureaucracy and shifting subsidizing policies are pushing many Egyptian farmers to give up cultivation of one of the country's most important crops.
Farmers use a threshing machine as they harvest their wheat crop in Qaha, El-Kalubia governorate, northeast of Cairo, Egypt May 5, 2016. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh - RTSED5W
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In November, the Egyptian government announced that it would start buying wheat from local farmers at the average global price to encourage Egyptian farmers to grow the crop. Egypt is seeking to reduce the gap between domestic production and actual consumption, seeing that the country consumes about 18 million tons of wheat annually but has a domestic production of less than 9 million tons.

This year's wheat harvest season, which started in mid-April and ends in mid-July, has been hit by several crises that have burdened Egyptian farmers. Egypt’s governorates have been battling a wheat supply crisis in storage houses and cooperative associations affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture.

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