Egypt’s Wheat Farmers Hobbled by Fuel Shortages as Silos Run Low
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Sucking tobacco smoke through a water pipe shared with three fellow farmers during a midday tea break, Osama Abdel-Ghani surveys the ripening wheat that Egypt is counting on to help feed its people.
A water pump, idled by lack of fuel, juts from his field on the outskirts of Giza, west of Cairo. Abdel-Ghani expects lower yields from his 4-feddan (4.2-acre) plot this year amid a shortage of fertilizer and diesel to run irrigation equipment, and says production costs have doubled in two years.