New legislation and agritech solutions are cropping up to help Egyptian farmers with the continued impact of climate change: Over the past several years, extreme weather conditions, rising temperatures, and water shortages in Egypt have led to crop losses and fluctuations in the market value of agricultural products. In a bid to help farmers — both large and small scale — better prepare for changing weather patterns and minimize crop losses, we’re seeing new agritech solutions being introduced. Meanwhile, the government has been working to introduce and expand legislative frameworks designed to help farmers offset financial losses from unexpected weather events.

IN CONTEXT- Over the past 10 years, many farmers in Upper Egypt and the Red Sea governorates suffered from deadly flash floods and the drowning of their crops. In 2015, an extreme heat wave that hit Egypt in May and June caused widespread damage to crops, including losses of up to 40% of wheat production and 30% of fruit production, according to Agriculture Ministry figures. Two years ago, olive and mango crops were hit hard as a result of climate change. Further back, in the 2019-2020 harvest season, crop production fell by some 50%, according to ministry figures. This impact is significant for Egypt because agriculture is a significant contributor to GDP, with the sector employing some 25% of the country’s labor force and generating USD 3 bn in revenues from exports in 2020-2021.

Part of what the government is trying to do to help: Expanding the contractual farming system. In 2015, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi issued a decree to introduce a new council for contractual farming to regulate and promote the practice of contract-based farming for essential commodity crops like wheat, rice, and sugar. Contract farming is a framework under which farmers and buyers (in this case, the government) enter forward contracts to produce and supply crops at certain quantities and quality standards, typically at predetermined prices. Now, the government is looking to expand the scope of its contract farming system to cover 3.4 mn tons of agricultural goods this year, from 1.2 mn tons in 2014, Agriculture Minister El Sayed El Qusier said earlier this year. This is part of the government’s strategy to support smallholder farmers in strategic crops (including wheat, corn, cotton, soybeans, sunflower, and rice) to increase the ability to build a stock of commodities, the minister said.

Startups are also looking at the same solutions: Agritech startups such as mozare3 — an app that helps farmers access contract farming, in addition to helping them with streamlining and digitizing their supply chain — have cropped up in recent years to further expand the scope of contract farming in Egypt.

Ins. products and legislation are being introduced to help farmers secure finance and protect them against potential climate-related losses: As part of the government’s financial inclusion push, with a specific focus on small farmers, the Unified Ins. Actincludes an agricultural crop ins. policy that covers climate-related hazards like rain and floods, drought, and temperature spikes, as well as damaged crops from humidity, pests, and diseases. The bill was ratified by the Senate last year and is currently in committee-level debate at the House of Representatives.

What the legislation would do: The new bill would, if passed, allow farmers to buy ins., meaning they would receive a payout if average crop yields drop below an acceptable level. The legislation is paving the way for pioneering ins. and financing agreements within this space to take shape, including between climate change and farming app zr3i and Misr Ins. Holding. “We are finalizing our agreement with Misr Ins. Holding to provide crop ins. This will be the facilitator for the agriculture industry to get financed because financing is not easy, if you can allocate ins.for this crop, then you can get financed,” Walid Nasr, founder of climate change and farming app, told Enterprise.

With changing rainfall patterns, water availability is becoming unpredictable, leading to lower crop yields and reduced productivity. The long summers and short winters disrupt the cycle of production. “Instead of planting cotton in February and collecting it in September like a farmer would typically do, now it shifted to April, so instead of getting 6 months of absorbing soil nutrients, it is now 4 months, that affects the quantity and quality of produce,” said Shaker Abol Maaty, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s climate change unit told Enterprise.

What are the traditional adaptation and mitigation measures currently used? Most of the climate adaptation solutions revolve around irrigation. Given dwindling water resources, many Egyptian farmers rely on interval-based irrigation where an automated system irrigates land on a fixed, eight-day cycle. Experts in the sector Enterprise spoke with pointed to mist irrigation, overheating, or covering crops with nets and using certain fertilizers and soil nutrients as suggested but costly solutions to help farmers mitigate crop losses.

Besides traditional mitigation measures, tech is also coming into play to help farmers reduce crop losses: Agritech startups like zr3i also help farmers face climate change by providing accurate weather forecasts, crop specific tips, soil analysis, and water and salinity assessment. A joint program between the Agriculture Ministry, the World Food Program, and EFAD introduced a similar app calledEarly Climate Change Alert. The project targeted small holder farmers and focused on raising awareness through community theater, mosque announcements and sending daily alerts specific to each crop online and via SMS or voice notes.

Planting certain crops that are more resilient could also be a solution: “The government should encourage farmers to plant cotton because it is heat and salinity tolerant, instead of maize which is heat sensitive,” climate change expert and head of the Egyptian Association for Sustainable Development Othman El Sheikh told Enterprise.

It’s not just the small guys — medium- and large-scale farmers, producers, and exporters are also heavily affected: With weather fluctuations, more established farmers who are reliant on larger markets and exports can’t guarantee a certain quantity or quality to provide to wholesalers or supermarkets. On the one hand, buyers don’t want to commit to a certain producer before the season starts, and on the other, producers have difficulty controlling the crops’ quantity or quality with more weather surprises every year.“The fruit itself is confused,” cofounder of the Egyptian Growers Organization and founder of major citrus exporter Marei Group Hussein Marei told Enterprise. “It’s never a scenario where you don’t have any fruit on the tree, but the fruit may have difficulty growing because the tree doesn’t have the nutrient reserve that it normally would build through a normal winter. The fruit itself starts developing poorly and you end up having a fruit that is not in the best health, and when it’s not in the best health that affects shelf life, and the quality of the fruit, also it affects the size of the fruit,” Marei explained.

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