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Comment by xbar | Hacker News Reader

Why is it no longer possible for Egypt to grow its own wheat?

Slightly informed guess is that the highly productive but water-constrained farmland of the nile valley is better used for value crops, like fresh fruits and vegetable, than a staple such as wheat which is more cheaply grown elsewhere.

Edit: there’s a great writeup about “hoop” style greenhouse farming there and how productive and water efficient it is… but the article escapes me presently

Edit2: ah! Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/dining/norwich-meadows-fa...

In general if you were to take away synthetic fertilizers and rely only on traditional agriculture without over-pumping water from aquifers you start to realize that the population of planet earth is only possible to sustain at its current levels with the current system and if/when parts of that start to go away then some of the people start to go away too.

The current situation highlights the reliance also on global supply chains functioning properly. These are fun times.

They do, but their population has also ballooned far past what their own agriculture can supply.

There are far, far too many people in Egypt. Egypt has had plans for decades to irrigate large parts of the desert to help solve the problem, but so far it hasn't gotten much further than the planning stages.

Egypt gets most of its food aid from Saudi. Saudi is entirely reliant on wheat imports and tried to grow wheat in the desert to no avail.

In the past decade, Egypt has been reliant from Saudi, UAE and Kuwait. This has always been so.

According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia produces 2.5 million tons of wheat annually, enough to meet domestic demand.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL08699206

That article is dated 2008. Since 2016, they stopped all wheat production in Saudi Arabia.

From the same 2008 article: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL08699206

[..] The kingdom aims to rely entirely on imports by 2016.

"The reason is water resources," said one official, who did not want to be identified.[..]

https://www.world-grain.com/articles/15070-saudi-arabias-whe... - 2021 article

There is a lot of chatter about abundance and technology..but the harsh truth that everyone ..esp those whose voices get amplified ..is avoiding is that we simply don’t have enough sustainable and renewable resources to feed 8 billion.

When the expected depopulation curve occurs in 2050ish, hopefully we wouldn’t have depleted all our natural resources because in the next 100 years, there will be far fewer humans and not enough resources to sustain them.

We have far surpassed carrying capacity. The world can bear about 1-3 billion max. Instead of trying to breed ourselves to extinction and stripping the world of natural resources by running faster to stay in the same place, we should focus on life extension and preservation of human genetic material for future propogation and perpetuation of the human species. It’s the smart thing to do.

Egypt is mostly desert, the only arable land is on the banks of the Nile.

While I was there this winter, I saw huge new plantations of dates? or palm (oil)? in the western desert sucking up the underground aquifers....fields with cows grazing there... also they're probably growing wheat....doesn't look sustainable but what do I know about the politics of economic corruption.... bread is dirt cheap, it being a bit more expensive might lead them to improve their diet somewhat... I mean their dates are fabulous...

There are probably some plants that grow better in Egypt than any other place. "Comparative advantage" makes you eternally dependent on the benevolence of other nations because wheat is more important than dates. The idea that Egypt has the same negotiating power as the wheat exporting nations is laughable.

In principle, one could attempt a afforestation project in Africa and it would pay dividends over centuries, but the current system doesn't reward longevity or sustainability.

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