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Egyptian city loses mango crop to climate change

Ismailia was long Egypt's mango growing hub, but climate change is quickly destroying the industry.

MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP via Getty Images
An Egyptian farmer carries a box of mangoes at a field in Wadi Al-Natrun area in Al-Beheira governorate, on Aug. 26, 2017. — MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP via Getty Images

CAIRO — Farmer Khaled Hussein waited eagerly for the mango harvest to start so he could pluck them from his dozens of mango trees on his five-acre farm. The mango harvest season starts in the city in June and comes to an end in September or October. Come the harvest season, however, there were no mangoes on the trees.

Like other farmers in Egypt's mango cultivation hub of Ismailia, 127 kilometers (79 miles) northeast of Egyptian capital Cairo and near the Suez Canal, Hussein had only to collect the mangos and hand them over to traders, who had paid for them in advance.

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