Egypt’s Agriculture Ministry said on Wednesday it would grow about 1.1 million acres of rice in the 2019 season, up from 800,000 acres last year, in an effort to reduce the country’s import bill.
The North African nation began importing rice, a crop it typically had in surplus, in 2018 to save water.
Cairo increased fines for illegal rice cultivation last year and decreed that just 724,000 feddans could be planted. A feddan is roughly one acre.
That marked a sharp drop from the officially allotted 1.1 million feddans for 2017 and the 1.8 million feddans grains traders believe were actually grown that year.
“The increase in acreage is to decrease the rice import bill and stabilize its price,” Ahmed Ibrahim, a media official at the Agriculture Ministry, told Reuters.
Rice cultivation had been slashed in an effort to conserve vital Nile river resources as Ethiopia builds a $4 billion dam upstream that Cairo fears could threaten its water stocks.
Egypt’s state grain buyer GASC has issued three international purchasing tenders since last year.

Egypt plans increased rice cultivation in effort to cut import bill

A rice farmer burns hay in a field, the traditional method of clearing fields before planting new crops, on the outskirts of Mansoura, on the Nile Delta, Egypt. (File photo: AP)
Reuters, Cairo
Wednesday 13 March 2019
Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:54 - GMT 06:54
DAY | WEEK |
-
22665 Views Coronavirus: Dubai temporarily postpones Pfizer vaccine campaign amid global shortage
-
16258 Views Saudi Arabia’s PIF to invest 3 trillion riyals over next 10 years: Crown Prince
-
8211 Views Saudi Arabia’s King Salman issues several new royal decrees
-
6434 Views Full moon to align directly above Kaaba in Mecca on Jan. 28
-
4641 Views Coronavirus: Dubai restaurants offer discounts for vaccinated diners
-
3673 Views Coronavirus: Dubai’s new restrictions disappoint hospitals; entertainers struggle on
-
22665 Views Coronavirus: Dubai temporarily postpones Pfizer vaccine campaign amid global shortage
-
19266 Views Coronavirus: Number of new UAE COVID-19 cases reaches record high
-
16836 Views Airstrikes pound Iran-backed militias south of Iraq’s Baghdad: Reports
-
10947 Views Coronavirus: Dubai orders hospitals to cancel surgeries amid surge in COVID-19 cases
-
8267 Views Coronavirus: Dubai suspends live entertainment permits as COVID-19 cases surge
-
7949 Views Coronavirus: Dubai's latest COVID-19 rules for weddings, restaurants, gyms, concerts
SHOW MORE