A member of the Egyptian House of Representatives has submitted a request for a briefing to Agriculture Minister Al-Quseir on low prices for this year’s “white gold” cotton crop after reaching £3,000 per centner.
In his enquiry, the spokesman said he had received several complaints from cotton farmers about low crop prices of £3,000 per quintal after exceeding £5,000 a quintal last year, despite a significant increase in the price of cotton. production requirements that doubled the value of the crop, indicating that last year the sown area was 233.5 thousand feddans, and the farmer cultivated 326.5 thousand feddans, an increase of about 20%.
He continued that what happened this year could negatively affect cotton cultivation in 2023, as the losses the farmer will suffer will be great and may force him to refrain from growing cotton at a time when we seek to regain the throne. ready-to-wear and spinning and weaving. It exceeds 10,000 pounds per acre per year, of which 40% is from growing only cotton, as well as plowing the land with a plow, as well as loosening the land with axes and harvesting manually with axes, which reaches more than 6,000 poods per acre, in connection with the daily rise of the agricultural worker to 70 poods a day.
A member of the parliamentary committee on agriculture explained that Egyptian cotton has a global reputation and we do not like what we used to see in the past, when it was sold as a raw material in European markets and then returned to us in the form of expensive clothes, emphasizing that the state can find its products, made by the hands of the Egyptians, in world markets.
Thus, the Egyptian export of cotton has increased, the level of income of farmers has increased, the employment of labor in local factories has increased, domestic and foreign trade has expanded, and, consequently, the trade balance of our country.
Source: Cairo 24