The Ministries of Agriculture and Irrigations are at loggerheads as regards the size of land to be devoted this season for rice cultivation.
The Ministry of Irrigation, the sole body responsible for feeding all Egyptian crops with necessary water, sees a pressing demand for rationalising water and thus suggesting cultivating 1.1 million feddans with this water-intensive crop.
However, the Ministry of Agriculture wants to increase the set area to 6.35 million feddans to guarantee self-sufficiency and supply rice to 90 million people.
The area the Irrigation Ministry set for rice cultivation will not cover local consumption as 5 million tons of un-milled rice finally ends up with 3.5 million tons of milled white rice which means that the Egyptian governments will have to import extra 500.000 tones at a cost of $300 million to cover local needs not to mention the fact that the long grain Philippine rice is not much preferred by the Egyptian.
The State treasury certainly cannot afford paying more dollars to import food.
Rationalizing the use of water should never come at the expense of the cultivation of crops.
To secure self-sufficiency in rice is certainly an excellent idea that will spare the State $300 million, the money needed to buy additional 500.000 tons of rice to cover local consumption.
Frankly speaking, it is time to teach the new generations how to rationalise the use of power, water and how to perfectly use heavy oil.
The new generations have to learn that production is better than importation and that they have to work for this goal for the sake of their nation’s dignity.
The should also know that most of the world regimes resort to austerity policy to serve their national economy.
And that’s why I call for supporting the Agriculture Ministry’s plans to increase rice production to 6.35 million feddans to achieve self-sufficiency for millions of Egyptians.
Water rationalisation should be the first lesson to be taught to school and university students in 2014.
