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Hunger Growls in Egypt: The country is now an agricultural basket case.
National Review ^ | 10/08/2104 | Daniel Pipes

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 Cairo’s 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 it’s 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 Egypt’s GDP by about 2 percent. One in five Egyptians faces food insecurity, and “a growing number of people can’t afford to purchase enough nutritious food,” according to Australia’s Future Directions International (FDI). To fill their stomachs, Egypt’s 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 Egypt’s 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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Egypt; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agriculture; egypt; foodshortage; hunger

1 posted on 10/08/2014 8:05:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


2 posted on 10/08/2014 8:08:55 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: SeekAndFind

Zimbabwe-—Part 2.


3 posted on 10/08/2014 8:09:25 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: SeekAndFind

And they will blame the US in 3, 2, 1...


4 posted on 10/08/2014 8:09:30 AM PDT by rfreedom4u (Texas isn't just a state. It's a state of mind!)
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


5 posted on 10/08/2014 8:09:57 AM PDT by rdcbn (21 plus)
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To: SeekAndFind

And to think, they were the breadbasket of the Byzantine Empire for centuries. How far they have fallen.


6 posted on 10/08/2014 8:10:06 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: SeekAndFind

I had to look up “aubergines.” Here in the colonies, we call them “eggplants.”


7 posted on 10/08/2014 8:13:43 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Jimmy Valentine

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.


8 posted on 10/08/2014 8:21:41 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: SeekAndFind
The "Agricultural Revolution" created the ability to grow enough food to feed billions of people. One little-mentioned problem is that the food is not free.

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.

9 posted on 10/08/2014 8:27:41 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: SeekAndFind

10 posted on 10/08/2014 8:28:51 AM PDT by dfwgator (The "Fire Muschamp" tagline is back!)
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


11 posted on 10/08/2014 8:47:08 AM PDT by Chewbarkah
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To: SeekAndFind

David Archibald predicts this in his book: “Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short”


12 posted on 10/08/2014 9:17:48 AM PDT by cblue55 ("Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants,")
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To: SeekAndFind
Egypt brought it on themselves because they let radical Islam almost totally take over their Country. Will they come back? Probably never.
13 posted on 10/08/2014 9:23:52 AM PDT by Logical me
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To: Logical me

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.


14 posted on 10/08/2014 9:46:15 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

...and without any compensation. moozlums are such reasonable people.


15 posted on 10/08/2014 10:22:50 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: SeekAndFind

“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


16 posted on 10/08/2014 10:52:39 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: rdcbn

“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.


17 posted on 10/08/2014 10:52:41 AM PDT by VanShuyten ("a shadow...draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.")
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To: SeekAndFind

Famine in Egypt? Where’s Joseph?


18 posted on 10/08/2014 1:37:34 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.)
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To: Graybeard58

RE: Famine in Egypt? Where’s Joseph?

Too late, they should have stored the grain during the seven fat years...


19 posted on 10/08/2014 1:40:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Strong private property rights would cure this problem and pronto. Sadly, Islam tends toward socialism and dictatorship. Socialism and dictatorship cause the 3rd world.


20 posted on 10/08/2014 1:58:13 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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