Cairo Magazine - Tuber troubles

Egypt's potato crop has come under scrutiny before, but the business has been booming for the past few years.

Paul Schemm

It’s going to be a tough year for Egyptian potato producers and exporters, as they face a new ban on potato shipments from the European Union following a sudden outbreak of brown rot in mid-February.

Greek officials sent a letter the third week of February to Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture, stating they had found several cases of brown rot, a bacterial disease that attacks the vascular bundles in the potatoes and rots out the inside of the tuber. On 7 April, Greece decided to ban all potato imports from Egypt, with most members of the European Union following suit.

“According to the reports of the Agriculture Ministry, only few cases of brown rot were discovered in potatoes entering Greece. I would say less than 1 percent of the shipments were affected,” said Safwat Al Hadad, director of Brown Rot Eradication Project in Cairo, a division of the ministry. “We were shocked to learn that the European Union has already imposed a ban again on our exports...we did not even have time to send our experts to examine Greece’s claims,” he added.

The office of the European Commission in Egypt defended the E.U. ban on the grounds that several countries, including the U.K., Italy, Greece and the Netherlands, reported being sent infected shipments.

This is not the first time that Egyptian exports face a ban from European countries. In April 1999, E.U. introduced a similar ban on Egyptian potatoes after the number of infested consignments began to rise.

Egypt then began to apply the “pest-free area” system, in which soil is considered diseased unless proven free of brown rot. By 2000, after months of negotiations, the European Commission agreed to again import potatoes planted in those areas as long as the number of intercepted cases is less than five.

“We haven’t changed the system since then. All the potatoes we export are free from brown rot, but I guess the E.U. began to worry after our exports increased tremendously last year. They began to feel we might be a threat to their local production,” said Hamdi Al Tahan, chairman of the General Committee for Potato Exporters at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce.

According to the latest statistics from the Agriculture Ministry, the number of potato exports has risen this year to 350,000 tons from 250,000 tons last year. The European Union received between 200,000 to 250,000 tons until the start of the ban. Exports have been increasing dramatically over the past few years, jumping from $5.5 million worth in 2002 to $20 million in 2004.

“It was definitely going to be the best year for Egyptian exports in decades, but the ban turned everything upside down. Now, a ton of potatoes is sold for LE190-200 instead of LE1,200,” Al Tahan lamented.

Sami Yassin, director of a potato export company in Menoufiya, said Egypt should not be blamed for the recent infections of brown rot. “In Greece, for instance, our shipments are kept for long periods before they are examined, which increases the percentage of infected potatoes,” he argued. “Greece and other European countries are also making any excuse to ban our exports. Now they say they are infected and other times they say they do not want us to use jumbo [200-500 kilogram] bags, preferring 50 kilogram bags, because it is better for the crop.”

Last week, several members of parliament filed interpellations (urgent questions that have to be answered by government officials) to the Agricultural Ministry asking for an immediate action by the government. They suggested that Egypt should boycott imports of potato seeds from E.U. member countries as an attempt to pressure the European Union into lifting the ban on Egyptian exporters.

Meanwhile, potato producers have to figure out how to distribute the E.U.’s portion of the 2.5 million tons planted this year.

“This huge amount cannot be consumed domestically and the E.U. was one of our main markets,” said Atta Muhammad, a potato producer in Menoufiya. “What is even worse is that because last year we witnessed a boom, many of us were encouraged to increase our production. So in 2005, potato crop increased by 40 percent, while our exports declined drastically,” he lamented.

Khairi Awad, a farmer in the town of Behira said that last year his profit for one feddan of potatoes was LE10,000, but now he only makes LE5,000-6,000.

“You cannot ask people who buy your harvest for more because the price of one kilogram of potatoes in the market declined from LE1.5 to LE0.5,” said Awad. “We will face a tough time if summer ends before we can find away to distribute the huge amounts we have.”