Egyptian Potato Market

Egyptian Potato Market

 

Egypt with 82 million people is the most populist country in the area.  The thin irrigated Nile river valley has been a prime agricultural area for millennium.  Potatoes are grown in the Nile delta in smaller plots and also in large irrigated fields in the western desert. Egypt produces basically two potato markets - small, beautiful potatoes for export to the EU countries and larger potatoes for the local market and other countries like Russia.  They import around 20,000 tons of potato seed a year so it is a big market to penetrate.  The European market is mostly a circular market with EU countries sending their varieties down as seed and then buying the fresh market potatoes for the winter market in Europe.  Our varieties would fit well with the local the Russian demand as well as processing demand for fries and chips. 

There are two main growing areas in Egypt - the Nile delta area and the new irrigated western desert.  The Nile delta has been farmed for a millennium and is comprised of mostly small plots irrigated with surface irrigation on sandy to somewhat heavy soils.  The land values in the Nile delta are incredibly high, but mostly owned by old family holdings and non-farmers as an investment and owning land is seen to be important for anyone with money.  This land is then farmed by tenants.  These tenants either use their own seed or buy it from the few big importers of seed. 

Nile delta farms

The western desert is vast and is being developed for agricultural use under center pivot and solid set  irrigation. 

Potatoes do well in the sandy soils under irrigation
Water is obtained from canals from the Nile or deep wells. 

The soils are very sandy and wind erosion is a serious problem. 

Wind breaks will be necessary to cut down on the wind damage to the potatoes.  The farms are large and grow multiple crops like oranges and sugar beets, It never rains there - an indication of this is that they store fertilizer and cement outside without tarps.  When asked where the well water comes from they said the Nile, but who knows.  There was once a forest in this desert as indicated by fact that the farmers there have big piles of old petrified wood piled at the edges of the fields that they hauled out.  If this water is ancient trapped water it would be a finite amount like the Ogallala aquifer in the US.  With enough water and fertilizer these fields produce very nice potato crops with exceptional quality in the sandy soil.

These large Western desert farmers are vertically integrated and all seam to own a seed import business with exclusive contracts with a European seed source.  These grower/seed importer/exporter groups are used to PVP contracts and would be easy to work with. 

They would all want an exclusive contract with a grower or state or they wouldn’t consider doing business with us.  We’ll have to chose carefully at first who to work with and be careful what we sign when doing trials.  They are motivated to sign a exclusive with US growers.  All these grower/seed importers/exporters do variety trials every year and we could send new material as well for evaluation once a market has been established. 

Variety Trials


These large growers have modern operations that separate the potato crop at harvest into the smaller ones for the European export market and the bigger ones for export to the region or other places like Russia.  They benefit producing potatoes for the winter market in these export markets and growing them during the cooler time of the year in Egypt. 

Hand sorting potatoes at harvest

Bagging up the different sizes and qualities

Bulk bag ready for export

Packing facility

Refrigerated Storages

In Egypt potato varieties need to be approved after trials.  The approval process seams a little opaque and difficult.  The local growers/seed importers also reported problems getting varieties they liked approved.  The institutions doing the trials often do a poor job of growing the trial materials.  The trials of US varieties have been poorly done up to this point resulting in low data and I was warned this poor data will be used against the varieties.  The main problem was the trials were planted too late and the trial became a heat stress trial. 

It may be hard to beat the European growers on price, but not impossible as the monopolies some enjoy encourage overpricing.  I’m not sure the seed importers are using us as a price bargaining ploy.  We definitely have to promote our own protected US varieties rather than trying to grow European varieties.  If one works like the Calwhite the exclusive will give us the market. 

The chipstock market seams wide open.  There is a large FritoLay chip factory in Cairo and they were very interested in obtaining US chip varieties.  You would need to go though the FritoLay internal policies first, but the chip plant seams very interested.

In summary, the market potential is large to export US potato seed to Egypt.  This will allow multiple container orders increasing efficiency.  The timing of the seed deliveries also correspond well for deliveries from the bigger fall seed crop enabling more growers to participate in this export market.  There are professional importers to work with that can protect our varieties and assist in evaluating new material in Egypt.  Market access and variety approval will be a little slow and may be difficult, but not impossible.  Both fresh (mostly white and yellows)   and chip varieties are possible.  The market will be competitive, but with the right exclusive variety still profitable.  Yes there is some political instability at the moment, but it doesn’t seam to be affecting the business community.

 The citadel

Alexandria