President Sisi instructs substituting existing cattle in Egypt with highly productive ones

CAIRO – 28 December 2021: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said Tuesday that counting on cattle that produce 5-6 kilograms of milk each, and that consume the same amount of feed consumed by others that produce 30 kilograms each, is pointless.

In that context, the Egyptian president instructed, during the inauguration of projects in Aswan, substituting existing cattle with highly productive ones.

On his side, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Al Sayed al-Qusair added that the ministry works on improving the heredity of cattle in Egypt.

The Egyptian president addressed the minister saying, “You can restructure the subsidies granted to farmers,” referring to raising productivity. For instance, the president commented on the number of feddans cultivated with sugar cane, producing each 40 tons per year. He said that such productivity can be raised to 60 tons, saving the costs of expanding the surface area and water that would be required to increase the harvest.

On that front, the agriculture minister highlighted that work is underway to substitute drip irrigation for surface irrigation, and to boost seedling production to achieve efficiency. The president said that, if 50 feddans (one feddan equals 4,500 square meters) are cultivated with seedlings, the experience will get promoted and spread.

In a similar context, the minister of agriculture said that the introduction of two fish hatcheries is under progress, prompting the president to say that the figure can become 10. That is when the number of fish rise in lakes after banning fishing in them for three months, as the end goal is raising the fish available in the Egyptian market per annum from 20 tons to 80 tons.

The president reiterated that supporting citizens to improve their income would not be achieved by giving them LE100-150 per month. Rather, it is through projects that would make sustainable development materialize, he said.