Egypt prohibits importing and planting GMO seeds, but allows imports of GM-produced soybeans and maize that have been approved from the country of origin, especially from the United States.
Planting GM crops in Egypt is implemented on a very limited scale as it is based on pollination to get improved strains of plants, Head of the Egyptian farmers’ Syndicate Hussein Abdel Rahman Abu Saddam told Egypt Today on [April 3].
Planting GM crops is not a very easy process as it requires several trials to ensure the safety of the people and for the public interest, he added.
Egypt is currently suffering from a potential crisis of wheat supply due to the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict as the two countries are the biggest wheat importer to Egypt. So, the government is targeting to increase the area of the wheat crops by 1.5 million feddans over the next three years in accordance with a new study conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).
Egypt needs about 18 million tons of wheat annually, with local productivity of 10 million tons of wheat. So, it has been gravely affected by the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict as it gets 80 percent of exported wheat from both conflicting countries.
