![]() The cabinet also announced that it would provide subsidized fertilizers to incentivize selling to the government. In March 2022, the government raised the price at which it buys locally-grown wheat to encourage local farmers to increase the amount of wheat they sell to the state. In the past year, the Sisi regime has issued a series of policies to both encourage and ultimately force domestic producers to sell their wheat to the government. The Egyptian government’s willingness to exploit its often impoverished small farmers indicates that the social contract between the state and its rural agriculturalists is deteriorating. While the country struggled to find replacement suppliers internationally, it increased its dependence on domestic producers, which led to financial difficulties for many of the country’s farmers and only slightly alleviated the burden of higher food prices from which poor Egyptians continue to suffer. Although Egypt was able to secure a steady wheat supply in the first several months of the Ukraine war, by October 2022, the country could no longer meet rising demand for subsidized bread. To replenish its supply of wheat, the Egyptian state has relied on some of the most vulnerable sectors of its population. ![]() Subsidized bread has long been central to Egyptians’ economic and political grievances. ![]() ![]() And although wheat prices have since fallen, experts say that global supplies are still short and a global food crisis remains a real possibility. In the first 100 days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, global wheat prices rose almost 60 percent, leading Egypt to diversify its wheat imports and explore purchasing from international tenders. Together, Russia and Ukraine are the source of over 80 percent of Egypt’s imported wheat. Egypt’s Food CrisisĪlthough Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not cause Egypt’s food crisis, the war’s disruption of global wheat supplies certainly exacerbated the government’s already extant inability to satisfy its citizens’ need for food staples. Over 70 percent of Egyptians currently rely on the state’s subsidized bread program, so when the government fails to keep bread affordable for Egypt’s most vulnerable citizens-especially women and the poor, who have disproportionately borne the brunt of the country’s recent economic crisis and wheat shortage-this bond between the state and its citizens is broken. From its key role in the government of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s socialist-nationalist regime, to the 1977 Bread Riots that erupted in response to former President Anwar al-Sadat’s attempt to remove bread subsidies, to the mass social movements that successfully toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, subsidized bread has long been central to Egyptians’ economic and political grievances, and has been an important indicator of the status of the government’s relationship with its citizens. In addition to its outsized cultural significance in Egyptian cuisine, eish baladi is an important part of Egypt’s economy, and is also understood by many Egyptians as being symbolically central to the social contract between the state and the people. Given that Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, consumption of its staple bread product, eish baladi, has been severely threatened by both domestic and global policies. Egypt’s allies, particularly the United States, should also leverage their influence to condition economic assistance on the Sisi government reallocating a greater portion of aid toward social welfare programs. Egypt’s dire economic situation demands greater investment by the Sisi regime, especially in women and the poor, in order to reinvigorate its social contract. These conditions have been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a subsequent global wheat shortage, which has hit especially hard in Egypt, a country that imports the vast majority of its wheat supply from abroad.ĭespite Sisi’s 2014 promise to revive the country’s economy, widespread inequality and a growing economic crisis are evidence of the fact that Egypt has effectively broken the social contract that has long existed between the state and its citizens. Sisi’s remarks came amid soaring inflation, a shrinking middle class, and price hikes on subsidized goods, all of which have caused Egypt’s poor to increasingly struggle to access basic commodities. In response to rising oil and food prices, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recently insinuated that Egyptians should “eat tree leaves” in order to survive under the country’s deteriorating economic conditions.
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