Agriculture Min.: Egypt Took Several Important Steps after Joining BRICS

Minister of Agriculture El Sayed Al Quseir confirmed that the Egyptian state had taken many important measures immediately after joining the BRICS group this year, including the establishment of a ministerial committee called the “BRICS Unit” in the Cabinet, which is concerned with files of the bloc.

This came during his speech before the first session of the BRICS gathering, which was held today in the Russian capital, Moscow, under the title “Sustainable agriculture as a basis for food security.”

The session was chaired by Oksana Lot - Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, in the presence of the Ministers of Agriculture of the BRICS member states.

The Minister of Agriculture said that these activities take place in light of the many challenges and crises facing the food security file, starting with the coronavirus pandemic and the increasing intensity of regional and international geopolitical tensions, and the resulting rise in food and energy prices and the impact on supply chains, in addition to the large and continuing effects of climate change, which impact on the agricultural sector, causing a decrease in the efficiency of returns from natural resources, in addition to the trade restrictions imposed by some countries and restricting their exports of strategic goods.

"All of these challenges and crises have greatly affected the economies of countries and their capabilities in building their sustainable food and agricultural systems, especially developing countries and emerging economies. They also taught us that cooperation between peoples, governments and countries is the only way to confront them and reduce their impact to a significant extent, through joint work to confront security challenges. Food and nutrition to achieve sustainable agricultural development for all our countries, which is what we are dealing with today in this conference."

The Minister of Agriculture pointed out the need for countries to take measures to support the food security and nutrition system by taking many proactive measures to maximize agricultural natural resources, protect biodiversity, maintain soil health and plant health, and combat desertification, as well as cooperation in the fields of digital agriculture, agricultural research, and agricultural adaptation to climate change, with new investments in infrastructure and improved logistics services to adopt the concept of the circular economy and climate-smart agriculture, with the importance of continuous development of sustainable food and agricultural value chains, and amending agricultural policies and strategies to ensure the sustainability of strategic food crops, which is usually linked to protecting the national security of each country.

The Minister of Agriculture also reviewed the Egyptian experience in achieving sustainable agricultural development, given the importance of this in achieving food security and providing safe, healthy and sustainable food for the Egyptian people and everyone residing on the territory of the Egyptian state.

He added that the Egyptian state has developed a sustainable agricultural development strategy within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030, which primarily aims to preserve, maintain, improve and develop the available agricultural economic resources and ensure their sustainability in order to achieve the greatest amount of food security and consistency with the SDGs of the United Nations.

Al-Quseir also reviewed the axes and policies that are being implemented to achieve the sustainable Egyptian agricultural development strategy through major national projects related to agriculture in its broad sense, especially horizontal expansion projects to turn the desert into an agricultural area, despite the fact that the issue of desert reclamation drains huge financial resources and requires investments.

The Minister of Agriculture said that the Egyptian state is one of the most efficient countries in using and recycling water resources, in addition to the efforts that have been made in developing high-yielding, early-ripening varieties, low water requirements, and resistant to environmental stresses, drought, and heat, in a way that ensures this important water resource is not depleted and raises the efficiency of the return, as well as ensuring its sustainability, especially since the Egyptian state is considered one of the countries that suffer water scarcity.

At the end of his speech, Al-Quseir pointed out the tremendous economic potential that the BRICS countries enjoy on all fronts, whether in terms of area, population, national product, or agricultural productivity, as well as the needs for food commodity productivity, especially grains, in addition to the diversity of comparative advantages among all the countries of the bloc.