Sisi: State focusing on technology, research to achieve leap in agricultural productivity

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Sunday received Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, and an accompanying delegation. Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation El Sayed El Quseir attended the meeting.

Discussions during the meeting asserted mutual esteem of the long-term partnership between Egypt and the FAO, which is reflected in multiple development projects covering fields of agriculture and food, as well as signing a new country agreement between Egypt and the international organisation for the period 2024-2027, Presidency Spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said.

The FAO chief expressed high estimation of the remarkable development, urban, agricultural and industrial, he saw during his visit, and stressed FAO’s commitment to carry on with intensifying bilateral co-operation, Spokesman Fahmy added.

The global food crisis especially including the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on Egypt was considered during the meeting, given that Egypt is one of the world’s largest grain importers.

In the course of the discussions, President Sisi expounded Egypt’s endeavours to overcome this challenge through achieving a large increase in the total area of the cultivated land, in addition to vertical expansion via focusing on scientific and technological research to improve productivity, Spokesman Fahmy said.

Also in this context, the president highlighted the mega agricultural projects Egypt has been carrying out to achieve vertical and horizontal expansion in agricultural productivity, which led to start of production of hundreds of thousands of newly-reclaimed ares, with a target of 4 million feddans, to be approached in this year and the following one.

For his part, the FAO director-general said that they are closely following Egypt’s experience in agricultural development, and stressed keenness to deepen co-operation with Egypt in a way that supports Egypt’s ambitious goal of improving food security for the Egyptian people, the spokesman said.

Egypt’s intensive efforts to push humanitarian aid, by land and sea, to save the Gazans were outlined in the course of an in-depth consideration of the catastrophic conditions in Gaza, which nearly hit a famine, Spokesman Fahmy said.

In this context, the FAO chief highly appreciated Egypt’s historical role which reflected the highest degrees of responsibility. He also reviewed the organisation’s efforts in this regard, and underlined eagerness to extend all forms of support to Egypt’s efforts to transfer food aid to Palestinians in Gaza.