Climate change is piling on new pressures on Egyptian businesses: Although often spoken about in the future tense, the effects of climate change are being felt now across the globe. Unfortunately, this is particularly true for Egypt with record-breaking heatwaves this summer laying bare the threat that rising temperatures pose to many of Egypt’s main economic sectors. The country’s agriculture, fishing, tourism, fertilizers, and manufacturing industries have already been making the headlines as businesses and the government looks for ways to adapt to this new hotter reality.

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Higher temperatures are squeezing the agriculture sector’s water supplies: With an already scorching summer that saw temperatures in the Aswan neared 50°C in early June before summer had properly kicked off, the country’s farms are having to use much more water than they have in previous years. Rising temperatures necessitate more frequent irrigation and an increase of water quantities by about 10-15% — or occasionally up to 20% — for the agricultural sector, which consumes 80% of Egypt’s already scarce water resources, the head of the Agriculture Ministry’s Climate Change Information Centre, Mohamed Fahim told Enterprise.

Hotter than usual summers are also reducing crop yield and quality: Rising temperatures are not just reducing crop yields, but are also speeding up the rate that crops mature and having a detrimental effect on the quality of the produce. These challenges present not only the challenge of farmers harvesting much less than they had hoped and having to try to balance the books, but also introduces unpredictability that disrupts supply networks. Mangos, for instance, ripened faster than expected this summer due to higher temperatures, which led to supply disruptions and farmers incurring losses as the season wrapped up much earlier than they had planned.

We’ve seen this process slowly playing out for many years: Between 2010 and 2021, vegetable yields fell by about 20%, dropping to 12.1 mn tons from 15.1 mn tons, according to data from Capmas. Some crops have been more affected than others, including potatoes, whose yield per acre is down 25-35% over the last decade to 13-15 tons per feddan, head of the General Syndicate of Egyptian Farmers, Farid Wasil, told Enterprise. Tomatoes have also suffered a similar fate, with a large percentage lost during ripping and following harvesting, Wasil added. Drops in agricultural output have also been reflected in rising prices as demand outpaces supply.

Evidence of a drop in crop yields can be seen on the dining table: Vegetable consumption per capita has declined by over 45%, falling to 72.5 kg in 2021 from 133.5 kg in 2010, according to an academic study from Cairo University faculty.

Many point to the summer of 2021 as the watershed moment for the agricultural sector: Although farmers had been battling rising temperatures for many years and recording drops in outlet, the summer of 2021 saw severe declines in the yields of olive groves and mango farms during the first half of the year — the worst witnessed in decades. This was a wake up call for many of how vulnerable Egypt and its produce sector is to rising temperatures, pushing both the public and private sectors to take the issue seriously.

Alongside a global campaign to limit global warming, part of the solution for farmers is to adapt to longer and hotter summers: One important way that farmers can protect themselves against rising temperatures is to use new crop varieties that are more climate resistant, Fahim tells us. There are new crop varieties better suited to deal with earlier summers and later winters, which have become common in Egypt, and the Agriculture Ministry has also been working to develop crop varieties with greater resilience to long summer seasons, Fahim told us.

A drop in output in the fishing industry can also be attributed to climate change: Egypt’s fish production fell by 12k tons to reach 168.5 tons between 2020 and 2022 — a drop that can be attributed to the effects of climate change, Lakes and Fish Resources Protection and Development Agency head Salah Moselhy told Enterprise. Water shortages and rising sea levels have had a strong impact on our fisheries, especially due to the lack of awareness over how to deal with these changes. Fishermen have also recorded smaller catches, with the amount of fish caught along the country’s Mediterranean coast alone declining nearly 50% between 2011 and 2019, according to environmental researcher Myriam Khalfallah.

The industrial sector has recently been feeling the pinch: An unusually hot summer that stretched energy supplies contributed to rolling blackouts that disrupted economic activity up and down the country. Some industries had it harder than others, with factories in the steel, livestock, food production, petrochemicals, and fertilizers industries facing operational disruptions and even complete shutdowns as gas shortages led to companies temporarily closing down operations.

The fertilizer and petrochemical sectors were the most affected: Several fertilizer plants were forced to halt operations on multiple occasions this summer for periods that lasted for up to two weeks due to gas supply cuts. Reduced production and limited supply in turn drove up fertilizer prices, which could potentially have a serious effect on the prices of Egyptian crops and how Egyptian farmers balance the books for the season, Naeem Brokerage’s associate vice president of research, Youssef El Banna, told Enterprise.

But the tourism industry is yet to really feel the heat: There has been limited impact on the tourism sector so far, as the heatwaves have extended to other countries across the Mediterranean and in Europe at large to varying degrees. “It’s unlikely that there will be a significant impact on Egypt as an attractive destination for tourists due to this heatwave,” Jaz Hotel Group CEO Alaa Akel told Enterprise. The variety of Egypt’s tourist destinations means that hotter areas like Luxor and Aswan see more bookings in the winter, while the bookings shift to areas along the Red Sea and the Mediterranean during the summer.

Your top green economy stories for the week:

  • Local union lobbies gov’t to revoke Red Sea fishing ban: The CooperativeUnion of Egyptian Water Resources has submitted a memo to the government opposing a five-year ban on fishing in the Red Sea. (Al Borsa)
  • The Environmental and Climate Policy Committee held its first session on Saturday. The new body aims to guide the country’s green transition, setting objectives, responsibilities, and collaboration across sectors in order to facilitate international financing for Egypt’s green initiatives. (Statement)
  • NREA allocates land for renewables plants: The New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) has allocated land plots spanning 31k km for investors looking to set up renewable energy projects.
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