Live from Macfrut: A big change to come in agriculture for Africa and Middle East

During the Macfrut show, Mr Ayman Al Shorbagy, chairman of Shams Agriculture Magazine is presenting his magazine dedicated to the growers and agriculture specialists in Middle East.

As a specialist of agricultural affairs in Middle East, Mr Ayman Al Shorbagy is very confident in the future of Middle Eastern Agriculture.

As Ayman stated:

" European governments left Africa and Middle East in the sixties, and they forgot about these countries for long years.

However our countries offer great potential, the weather conditions are perfect, the land is full of water. For instance, there is 1 million years of water between Lybie and Egypt, in the West desert. In addition, the land is very cheap, you do not need to build greenhouse, or to develop heating for fresh produce. Everything is there to feed a big population, and may be the whole world population.

One of the main problem is to manage this development. In Egypt, few local professionnals know how to develop both the production and the sales of fresh produce. That's why there are more and more , maybe 40, joint venture companies with Italian, Dutch professionnals, and most of it with Chinese.

Now , Europeans go again for African countries, as China is buying enormous piece of land there. As an example, China has now 30% of the land in Sudan.

This statement will not last for many years.

The whole world will think again about the place of African and Middle East in agriculture. In 2008, we already had some shortage in food offer with instant consequences on the world market prices. This kind of situation will have to happen again in order to convince decisions makers to change their mind towards Africa and Middle East."