Posted on 10/08/2014 8:05:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Egypt, famed for millennia as the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, now faces alarming food shortages. Food for Stability, a startlingly candid report by Gihan Shahine in Cairos Al-Ahram newspaper, makes clear the extent of the crisis.
To begin, two anecdotes: Although compelled by her father to marry a cousin who could afford to house and feed her, Samar, 20, reports that they have only had fried potatoes and aubergines for dinner most of the week. Her sisters, ten and 13, who left school to take up work, are losing weight and suffer chronic anemia.
Manal, a nurse and single mother of four, cannot feed her children. In the past we used to stuff cabbage with rice and eat that when we did not have any money. But now even this sometimes can be unaffordable because of rising prices. Our kids were always malnourished, but its getting even worse.
These children are not unusual: According to the U.N.s World Food Programme (WFP), malnutrition stunts 31 percent of Egyptian children between six months and five years of age, one of the highest rates in the world. WFP also found in 2009 that malnutrition reduced Egypts GDP by about 2 percent. One in five Egyptians faces food insecurity, and a growing number of people cant afford to purchase enough nutritious food, according to Australias Future Directions International (FDI). To fill their stomachs, Egypts poor rely on low-nutrition, calorie-dense foods (such as the infamous all-starch kushari) that cause both nutritional deficiencies and obesity. And 5.2 percent of the population is actually going hungry, an Egyptian state agency, CAPMAS, reports.
Many factors contribute to Egypts hunger crisis. Going from the deepest to the most superficial, these include:
Flawed government policies: Cairo has consistently favored urban over rural areas, leading to reduced agricultural research,
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Hopefully, Egypt may recover from the disease that is Islam.
Give them credit for stating something that our muzzie slime president won’t admit, the muslim brotherhood consists of people with even less morals than Obama.
Zimbabwe-—Part 2.
And they will blame the US in 3, 2, 1...
Ethanol fuel mandates have increased corn and grain prices by a factor of 3 or more since 2006.
The high cost of food grain is destroying the third world and driving starvation.
And to think, they were the breadbasket of the Byzantine Empire for centuries. How far they have fallen.
I had to look up “aubergines.” Here in the colonies, we call them “eggplants.”
The Coptic Christians of Egypt used to have lots of hogs until the swine flu fear gave the moslems an excuse to kill the hogs off.
It costs money to buy fertilizer, weed-killer, pesticides, fuel for the tractors, etc. There are an increasing number of people whose skill level and IQ are so low that they cannot earn enough money to feed themselves, and the limits of Western charity are being reached.
The productive people of the West will very soon reach a point where they will either be taxed into poverty in order to feed the unproductive, or will rebel and let the famines happen.
Aid from the US is a big part of the Egyptian food equation, as part of Carter’s payoffs for accepting “Camp David”. Egypt has been unable to feed itself for many years. I doubt the Egyptian masses know this. Their current problems stem from massive population growth without economic growth to support it.
David Archibald predicts this in his book: “Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short”
Their biggest problem was that their tourism income went to ZERO. Not too many people willing to take the trip out to the pyramids if you are afraid you may get raped or killed on the way.
It will take decades for them to get this back. I am sure there are not a lot of people booking safaris in Kenya or Tanzania now either because of the fear of Ebola.
...and without any compensation. moozlums are such reasonable people.
“Although compelled by her father to marry a cousin....”
Well, know you know why so many of these Moslem countries can’t find their ass with both hands and a mirror. http://europenews.dk/en/node/34368
“Ethanol fuel mandates have increased corn and grain prices by a factor of 3 or more since 2006.”
Actually, corn is only up about 75% from 2006, with the price coming very close to production costs. Soybeans, which are not used to make ethanol and do not substitute for grains, are up about 50% over 2006, and are priced below production costs.
Famine in Egypt? Where’s Joseph?
RE: Famine in Egypt? Wheres Joseph?
Too late, they should have stored the grain during the seven fat years...
Strong private property rights would cure this problem and pronto. Sadly, Islam tends toward socialism and dictatorship. Socialism and dictatorship cause the 3rd world.
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