A farmer carries a load of wheat straw after threshing in a field in the village of Maraziq, about 30 kilometres south of Giza (Khaled DESOUKI) · Khaled DESOUKI/AFP/AFP
Egyptian smallholders have seen their lives upended by the war in Iran, with soaring fertiliser and energy prices forcing many to lay off workers and reduce the amount of land they farm.
Before the United States and Israel launched the war that would end up engulfing the region, Ashraf Abu Ragab cultivated a full acre with a small crew.
Now he farms just half on his own after sacking the workers he once relied on, and has quit growing wheat, a fertiliser-intensive crop.
“Everything has become more expensive,” the 45-year-old told AFP, standing among rows of maize and sesame in the village of Nazlet Al-Shobak, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Cairo.
“Fertilisers, seeds, chemicals. The crops no longer cover their costs.”
With most expenses nearly doubling since the war began, Abu Ragab said farming “no longer pays”, forcing painful cutbacks.
“I used to have three workers. Now I work with my own hands.”
He is among thousands of smallholders in the vast nation struggling with rising input costs, from fertilisers and fuel to seeds and feed, as the Iran war hits global markets.
In Nazlet Al-Shobak, irrigation pumps sit idle for hours to conserve fuel.
Some plots lie uncultivated, while thin lines of grass grown as animal fodder weave between vegetables to stretch scarce inputs.
Nearby, dusty sacks of potatoes are piled along the field edges, some loaded onto trucks, others left to sit for weeks, as farmers gamble on prices that rarely improve.
A short walk away, a threshing machine spews clouds of dust and chaff as wheat pours out in a steady stream, rattling into worn brown sacks at farmers’ feet.
Watching the harvest, tenant farmer Mohamed Ragab, 40, doubts it will bring profit.
“I will barely get by,” he told AFP.
– ‘Difficult choices’ –
Disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global trade, have hit energy and fertiliser supplies.
In peace time, about one-third of traded fertilisers pass through the waterway, along with one-fifth of liquefied natural gas and 35 percent of crude oil.
Higher fuel costs have directly impacted agriculture, from fertiliser production and irrigation to transport.
“A significant share of critical inputs is being affected,” Maximo Torero, chief economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told AFP.
“Farmers will have to make difficult choices, using fewer inputs, switching crops or reducing irrigation, all of which lower yields,” he said.
Although Egypt produces seven to eight million tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser annually and exports more than half, domestic access remains uneven.