Egypt has low rates of food insecurity when compared to other low and middle income countries. Under 5 percent of the population are considered undernourished according to the FAO’s 2015 report on food security. In fact, the FAO reports that 60 percent of women and 25 percent of men are obese, suggesting that Egyptians regularly enjoy a surfeit of calories. However, a closer look at the situation in Egypt reveals significant issues. According to the FAO and UNICEF, between 21 and 30 percent of Egyptian children under the age of 5 are stunted, and 40 percent of children under 18 months and 27 percent of children under 5 years old are anemic. In fact, UNICEF reports that stunting levels are highest in the lowest and highest income ranges (23 – 24 percent), suggesting that there is something systematically dysfunctional about the food systems. So what are people eating – or not eating – that is causing this double burden of obesity and malnutrition? One of the biggest issues is the quality and safety of healthier food choices.
According to head of the Food Safety Authority and dairy expert Dr. Hussein Mansour, large dairy processors struggle with poor milk quality at collection points. Dr. Hussein told me that milk is collected in a number of ways, some of which involve poorly maintained milk containers and small motorbikes. Almost all the milk comes from small family farms with one to five cows. Farmers or collectors routinely add formaldehyde or hydrogen peroxide to the milk in order to keep it fresh long enough to deliver to buyers. Because milk found on the shelves in supermarkets has often expired, Egyptians prefer to buy (raw, unpasteurized) milk from the (unrefrigerated) tank on the back of the donkey cart because it is “farm fresh.” Dr. Hussein has been working for over 20 years with the government and major dairy stakeholders to create and implement food safety standards for dairy with little change because of a combination of confusing contradictory rules and poor enforcement. A new project funded by IDRC hopes to change this by working directly with the private sector to create a new demand-driven system.
In a meeting with purchasing department at Carrefour Egypt in 2014, I learned that supermarket chains are constrained by government policies that result in them importing little to no fresh produce. Hence, most of what is on the shelf is produced locally. In 2015 at meeting on pesticide regulation hosted by Blue Moon, I learned that standards for the use of pesticides are in place, but weakly enforced. Imitation brands from Asia are easily found in the markets alongside brand name products, but farmers are not trained in how to use them and unsafe pesticide levels are found regularly. At the meeting, Dr. Ashraf Almarsafy, Director of the Central Laboratory of Residue Analysis of Pesticides and Heavy Metals in Food said that the most contaminated vegetable is green beans, and guava for fruit. Add this to the prevalence of parasites such as Entamoeba hystolica (personal experience), the food safety levels for fresh produce in Egypt are very poor.
Meat in Egypt is mostly produced locally. Local butcher and owner of the Butcher House in Maadi, Hussein El Buckley says that government programs have focused on improved breeds for milk, not meat (with little success, according to Dr. Mansour). In most cases, beef animals are raised in poor conditions, and slaughtered inhumanely under unhygienic conditions. Add in lack of refrigeration and the meat is barely edible. Sheep, poultry and eggs may be better, but too expensive for many Egyptians to consume regularly. Another alternative is fish. According to World Fish, locally produced fish is still mostly sold locally by women at the farm gate or collected by a small number of wholesalers, all without proper chilling, leading to highly variable quality.
Egypt’s wealthiest residents can find high quality imported beef from Australia at Gourmet, fish from dedicated high end suppliers, or locally produced fruits and vegetables that come from corporate farms (like Agrofood) whose production is almost entirely intended for export – and meets international food safety requirements.
Everyone else eats the poor quality foods available in the regular markets, where refined carbohydrates are the safest foods available. Egypt has a tough job ahead to improve food safety and improve diets. It is Egypt’s children who are paying the price, setting them up for a lifetime of cognitive, health and social problems. It is a crisis of serious proportions. I applaud the government’s push to implement new food safety regulations, and hope they include the capacity for enforcement. These changes cannot come too soon.
