A few days ago, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for the launch of a national programme to replace the head of livestock held by farmers with breeds that are more productive in meat and milk, with the aim of improving the income of rural families and supporting the agricultural economy, proposing to replace the monthly cash support provided to some families under the “Takaful and Karama” programme with a productive head of livestock.
The presidential statements, which came during the events of the 2025 wheat harvest season, stirred up a storm of controversy: specialists in livestock and veterinary medicine stressed that imported cattle breeds need special facilities, constant medical care and larger quantities of feed and rations, which the farmer or breeder cannot provide, threatening their death, while experts warned of the danger of eliminating local breeds, as they are a genetic reservoir that is the product of thousands of years of interaction and adaptation to the climate and environment within Egypt’s geographical range and of resistance to diseases and to climatic conditions that are not ideal for production.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation had previously announced, in January 2019, the import of pregnant cows from the European Union, of high-productivity breeds for household rearing, as a form of support for small breeders and farmers, within the framework of the livestock development project initiative to increase meat and milk production and improve breeds, and as part of a Central Bank initiative allowing farmers and small breeders to obtain small loans to buy one to three head of European cattle and repay the loan over 4 years.
A number of farmers and small breeders in Egypt responded to the initiative, seeking to increase meat and milk production, but many of them have suffered over the past few years from repeated deaths of cows on their farms and from the cows contracting diseases and infections, as a result of their inability to adapt to environmental conditions and climatic factors and their lack of immunity to diseases, compared with their local-breed counterparts, which has caused them heavy financial losses.
Data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) show that the number of livestock in Egypt (cows – buffalo – sheep – goats – camels) has declined since 2014 by 59.1%; it stood at 18.6 million head at that time, but fell to 7.6 million head in 2023. Coinciding with the start of the initiative’s implementation, a sudden decline in livestock numbers occurred in 2019, reaching 7.4 million head, instead of 8.9 million in 2018, and numbers fell to their lowest level in 2020, when the total number of head of cattle and sheep reached 6,500,000 head in that year.
Over the past ten years, the average per capita share of milk declined: it stood at 61.9 kilograms in 2014, but fell to 51.8 kilograms in 2023, a decrease of 16.3%. The average per capita share of red meat in 2014 had reached 10.8 kilograms, and it rose in 2015 to 13.6 kilograms, but it declined over the following years to reach 7.9 kilograms in 2023, a decrease of 27% compared with 2014 and of 42% compared with 2015, according to data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics.
Local breeds are a genetic reservoir
Cattle breeds are classified into dairy cattle, beef cattle and dual-purpose cattle. Dairy cattle breeds include: Holstein, the best-known type of milk-producing cow, which is a Dutch-German breed; Red and White Holstein, which belongs to the United States and Canada, tolerates high temperatures and has a strong immune system against diseases; Jersey cows, the smallest cattle breed in size, originating from the British island of Jersey, distinguished by their ability to live in warm and cold weather and by the high fat content of their milk; there is also the Brown Swiss, which descends from the Alps in Switzerland and is one of the oldest dairy breeds in the world, whose milk is distinguished by its high protein and fat content; the Guernsey cow, distinguished by its golden colour and its milk containing beta-carotene, one of the sources of vitamin A; in addition to Ayrshire cows, which belong to south-west Scotland, are distinguished by their white fat, and have a medium-to-high milk composition and a medium-to-high milk yield.
Among the best-known cattle breeds producing meat around the world is “Aberdeen Angus”, which is usually raised in areas with heavy rainfall and can adapt to many types of environmental conditions; it is distinguished by its black colour, is famous for its production of calves, and resembles the Red Angus breed, which was developed from red calves produced from cows of the Aberdeen-Angus breed. In addition, there are Brahman cattle, which live in hot, humid climates, and which live in India; there is the Charolais breed, which originated in France and is distinguished by its huge size and the rapid growth of its calves; likewise the Hereford cow, originally from England, which is distinguished by its production of calves, can withstand high temperatures and needs less care; and the French Limousin cattle breed, distinguished by its dense muscles and its low-fat meat.
There are also the English Devon breed, the Scottish Galloway and Highland, the French Maine-Anjou, Salers and Tarentaise breeds, and other breeds such as: Gelbvieh from Germany, Friesian from Ireland, Chianina, Marchigiana and Romagnola from Italy, and Bonsmara and Drakensberger from South Africa, all of which are used in meat production.
Meanwhile, the best-known dual-purpose cattle breeds are the Swiss Simmental cow, which is raised for the production of meat and milk, the Australian Murray Grey, the American Beefmaster, Brangus, Charbray and Santa Gertrudis, the Australian Droughtmaster, the French Montbéliarde and Normande, the German Fleckvieh, the South African Bonsmara breed, and the British Shorthorn.
As for the Egyptian breeds of cattle, they are divided into: Damietta cattle, which are considered the smallest cattle in size and whose milk production is considered high, reaching 4,000 pounds a year with a fat content of 5%; they are considered Egypt’s leading dairy cattle, but their numbers are small. There are Menoufi or Baladi cattle, Egypt’s leading working cattle, which are larger than the Damietta and yield less milk; Saidi cattle, which live in Upper Egypt, are small in size, are believed to be suitable for fattening, and have a good milk yield; there are Sahrawi (desert) cattle, which are scrawny and unsuitable for work or milk production; and there are also Hereford cattle, of English origin, which produce good meat and have been raised successfully in Egypt because they are resistant to tuberculosis, are suited to living in hot countries and require lower costs, and which are found in large numbers in New Valley governorate.
Official statistics show that around 92% of the cows in Egypt belong to low-producing local breeds: the Baladi cow grows at a daily rate ranging between 600 and 700 grams only, while international breeds such as Holstein and Angus may gain around 1.5 to 2 kg per day. The milk production of Egyptian cows ranges between 5 and 30 kilograms per day per cow, depending on the type of breed and the methods of care, and they produce smaller quantities than foreign cows such as the “Holstein” breed, whose production may reach 50 kilograms per day, while cows crossbred between local cows and foreign breeds produce between 25 and 50 kilograms per day.
Despite the weak productivity of the Egyptian cattle breed, scientists warn against eliminating it and replacing it with imported breeds. Nutrition and feed consultant Dr Mohamed El-Sherif, who holds a master’s degree and a PhD in animal nutrition from the University of Minnesota in the United States, explains that local breeds are a genetic reservoir or gene pool, the product of thousands of years of interaction and adaptation to the climate and environment within Egypt’s geographical range and of resistance to diseases and to climatic conditions that are not ideal for production, stressing that they must be preserved as a basis for genetic improvement through selection and crossbreeding to raise their productive efficiency, by scientific methods and organised research programmes that require large financial allocations, facilities and research capabilities.
The animal nutrition expert adds, in a tweet on his account on the social media platform X, that the state is encouraging and incentivising increased imports of cows from high-productivity foreign breeds, but these need modern barns that simulate the suitable climatic conditions of the homeland in which they were developed and produced, equipped with insulation, ventilation, cooling, hygiene, automatic milking and artificial insemination with continuously imported semen; they are therefore suitable for large producers and unsuitable for being raised individually by small farmers. He strongly denies that imported cows have the same feeding cost and produce more milk or meat, as the president repeats, explaining that the greater their genetic capacity for higher production, the greater their nutritional needs and their cost, as well as the cost of their care and protection from diseases and their sensitivity to the difference between Egyptian climatic conditions and their original environment, so there is no free improvement in production.
Different climatic, epidemiological and pasture environments
Dr Shereen Ali Zaki, head of the Food Safety Committee at the Veterinarians Syndicate and chair of the board of directors of the Nile Social Club for Veterinarians, explains that Egyptian Baladi breeds are resistant to some types of diseases endemic in Africa, whereas importing breeds from different environments and raising them in the local environment leads to a difference in their immunity levels, as a result of differences in climatic, epidemiological and pasture environments. She explains that the large meat and milk production of those breeds is linked to their consumption of large quantities of feed and rations with specific proportions of the materials that go into their composition, and that they need different pastures that are not available in Egypt, so this is compensated for with huge quantities of feed, whereas the local breed is raised in pens and eats whatever the farmer or breeder gives it.
She tells Zawia3: “If the president wants to give breeders head of livestock that produce large quantities of milk and meat, he must provide them with feed at subsidised prices; otherwise, feeding those imported livestock will be a “ruin of homes” that the farmer cannot afford, given the insane rise in feed prices as a result of the dollar exchange rate”, pointing out that the taste of the meat of Baladi breeds, to which the Egyptian consumer is accustomed, differs from the taste of imported breeds even if they eat the same ration and are slaughtered in Egypt, although meat production in the local breed is much lower than in European breeds.
The veterinarian explains that there are dairy-production empires in Egypt and foreign companies in the Egyptian market that rely on imported cattle breeds, and they succeed in this because their rates of spending on feed, health care and vaccinations for livestock are extremely high, in addition to their designing farms in a way characterised by biosecurity, which prevents the spread of seasonal epidemics, and their resorting to feeds, rations and formulations that help achieve higher milk and meat productivity. They cannot in any way be compared with the capabilities of the simple farmer or breeder, who has no scientific knowledge of how to care for imported livestock and has no resident veterinarian on the farm, but rather resorts in most cases to treatment with folk remedies before seeking veterinary medicine, and may neglect vaccinations, leading to cases of livestock deaths and disease outbreaks on his farm, especially as imported breeds find it difficult to live in a pen and need barns with specific specifications.
While the experiments of some farmers and small livestock breeders in raising imported cows have failed, the largest dairy companies in Egypt rely on imported breeds: the company Dina Farms, affiliated with Qalaa Holdings, owns a large herd of cows of the American Holstein breed, a breed famous for its high milk production, with production reaching 80,000 tonnes a year; its herd numbers more than 13,262 head, including about 7,291 milking cows, and the company aims to increase production to 140,000 tonnes in 2025.
For its part, the company Juhayna imports the milk-producing Friesian Holstein cattle breed, and imports the Simmental breed, a dual-purpose breed for the production of milk and meat, because of its great capacity to withstand harsh environmental conditions. The company applies an innovative system for cooling cows to cope with the climatic conditions prevailing in the region, the high temperature and low humidity, by installing fans of large size and power along with pumps that propel water onto the cows to cool them, so that the water is only a mist. This innovative cooling system contributes to giving the cows high productive efficiency and leads to stable production rates in summer and winter. To ensure that the feed and the milk produced are free of diseases, the company established a laboratory to analyse the nutritional materials given to the cows, to analyse the milk produced to determine its quality, and to analyse the diseases that affect the cows and determine the appropriate treatment and vaccinations.
Meanwhile, the company Lamar Misr raises Holstein cows, as one of the best types of cows for milk production, and provides them with a farm in the Nubaria area that grows agricultural crops to feed them. The farm owns more than 10,000 cows, including Holstein cows, which were raised in special barns, with specific types of agricultural crops selected to ensure their good nutrition, and with care taken to provide them with good health care through periodic examination and the provision of a healthy and comfortable environment for the cows.
Crossbreeding instead of replacement
Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture established 4 main centres for artificial insemination in Egypt, in the areas of “Amreya – Sakha – Abbasiya – Beni Suef”, and 632 artificial insemination points at veterinary units, equipped with the required devices, all of which work to produce the semen used in artificial insemination operations to improve Egyptian breeds by mixing them with foreign breeds of high meat and milk productivity, and Egyptian breeds.
The milk and meat productivity of local cattle breeds is lower than that of their European counterparts: the average volume of milk production of the Baladi cow is around 8 kilos of milk per day, and weight gain ranges from 800 grams to a kilo, as explained by Dr Ahmed Shehab El-Din, director of the Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer Centre, to Zawia3. However, he stresses the need for an acclimatisation process for imported livestock, and for providing them with cooling to protect them from the hot weather in summer, to avoid the death of a proportion amounting to 10% to 20% of them because of the different environment and the farmer’s inability to provide cooling for the livestock, or, alternatively, for European breeds to be brought from farms located in Egypt, such as Juhayna, Dina Farms, Milkiz and Copenhagen. He points out, however, that those farms do not have enough to replace the local breeds of livestock, whose numbers amount to around 3 million head.
He tells Zawia3: “First, we ask the breeder: does he want to produce milk or meat? Or dual-purpose? If he is targeting milk, we inseminate his cows with the semen of Holstein cattle, whose production reaches 50 litres per day, and we cross Baladi cows with Brown Swiss, which gives good results in meat conversion rates, reaching a kilo and a half of gain per day. As for dual-purpose, we crossbreed local cows with the Swiss Simmental and the French Montbéliarde, which give around 35 kilos of milk per day, with a conversion rate of 1.7 kilos per day. To produce meat, we crossbreed the Baladi cow with the Aberdeen Angus or Charolais breed, or Limousin cattle, whose meat conversion rates reach 2 kilos per day, and which are distinguished by a good taste”.
Shehab El-Din affirms that mixing local breeds with imported breeds through artificial insemination gives good results: the milk production of crossbred livestock increases by 50%, and they have high immunity to diseases and adapt to environmental conditions, as they acquire traits from the mother. He explains that some local livestock breeds are mixed, such as cows distinguished by the two colours black and white, while purely Egyptian cows are yellow or red in colour.
For his part, engineer Sameh Soliman, director of the Amreya Artificial Insemination Centre, explains to Zawia3 that European breeds need special care and acclimatisation to adapt environmentally to temperatures, so artificial insemination is a better option, because it produces a crossbreed of livestock with genetic traits close to those of European breeds but able to adapt to the Egyptian climate, explaining that reaching these results requires producing three generations of crossbred lines over 6 years.
He adds that the simple farmer cannot provide the special care and the large quantities of feed that imported breeds need: the farmer feeds local livestock clover, straw (dried wheat stalks), bran and maize, while imported cows become emaciated and fall ill when they receive this insufficient nutrition. Imported cows are also more susceptible to allergies and infections, and need mechanical milking machines so that the udder is not damaged, and the livestock breeder needs training in the correct way to raise and care for imported breeds.
The need to provide feed
Dr Mohamed Fathy Salem, professor of genetics and former adviser at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), believes that raising livestock in villages differs from raising them systematically on farms belonging to large companies, which provide superior veterinary care and good therapeutic nutrition, something not available to farmers and small breeders. In addition, European cows are sensitive to heat, and because they produce multiples of the quantities of milk that the Egyptian breed produces, they need to consume larger quantities of feed. He points to the possibility of applying the experience of Brazil, which relied on artificial insemination in the countryside and on dividing livestock into dairy cattle, beef cattle and dual-purpose cattle.
The former FAO adviser affirms that Egypt does not have the quantity of feed needed to raise imported livestock, and that the matter requires the government to work to provide feed with a high concentration of protein at cheap prices, using Egyptian technology and without the need to import; the state spends around $6.8 billion on importing yellow maize and soybeans, and while a feddan in Egypt produces around 50 to 60 tonnes of fodder, it could produce 200 tonnes of fodder if advanced technology were used, and European breeds, which require large quantities of feed, could thus be brought in.
Over the past five years, the Ministry of Agriculture has set about implementing support programmes for small farmers and breeders with the aim of increasing local production, closing the red meat gap and reducing imports from abroad, relying on pillars consisting of establishing a database, expanding the National Veal Project, adopting a policy of improving breeds and raising the productivity of Egyptian breeds, providing the veterinary care necessary to maintain animal health, and developing milk collection centres.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the total number of small-farmer beneficiaries of the National Veal Project reached around 42,000 beneficiaries in most of the republic’s governorates, with a number of head reaching 475,000 head, and total financing exceeding EGP 7.3 billion at a subsidised interest rate of up to 5%.
The need for a long-term plan
Dr Ahmed Fathy Naeem, livestock and poultry consultant, points to the need to keep pace with population growth, which requires increased consumption of quantities of milk and meat, by studying the whole of Egypt and not a single region, exploiting desert areas and oases for raising camels, and raising imported breeds that tolerate high temperatures, such as Brazilian types, in Upper Egypt. He explains that crossing between breeds began in Egypt in 1940, but Egypt has not yet succeeded in achieving self-sufficiency in meat and milk, because of diseases and high temperatures, the targeting of increased production regardless of immunity, and the failure to put the right breed in the right place, stressing that Egypt as a state is managed wrongly in animal production, because of the absence of a long-term plan and because fixing a gene line requires at least 20 years, and therefore development cannot be carried out quickly.
He tells Zawia3: “80% of the cost of animal production in Egypt is feed, so the feed problem must be solved and its monopoly in the Egyptian market broken. We need a long-term plan for the genetic development of breeds in Egypt and to solve the feed problem, increase oversight at the ports and confront the monopolists of maize and soybean imports, who control their prices, solve the problems of fattening and end the centralisation of vaccinations, which are transported from Cairo to the governorates in an unsafe and unscientific way, making the efficacy of vaccinations dependent on the competence of the vaccinator, by establishing serum and vaccine branches in the governorates, and in this way the problems of animal production in general will be solved”
The expert proposes that the state expand the raising of Barki sheep and heat-tolerant sheep in the oases, and use the floodwaters in the deserts of Sinai and Upper Egypt to cultivate natural pastures for raising livestock, and that it not leave the matter only to the individual work of investors or to farmers and livestock breeders in the villages, explaining that local livestock breeds are distinguished by their high immunity despite their weak productivity, while the opposite is true of imported breeds, and that to overcome this problem the method of crossing breeds through artificial insemination must be followed.
In light of the environmental and economic challenges surrounding animal production in Egypt, it does not seem that the bet on high-productivity foreign breeds can succeed without the provision of suitable infrastructure and sufficient technical and financial support. While the state seeks to maximise the economic return from livestock and improve the income of rural families, experts warn against ignoring local environmental characteristics and the reality of simple breeders, which could lead to counterproductive results, including the death of imported livestock, heavy losses for small farmers, and the erosion of Baladi breeds, which represent an irreplaceable genetic treasure.
While large companies succeed, thanks to their huge capabilities, in raising foreign breeds, the small farmer still lacks the technical and technological support needed to undertake the same experience. Hence, the option of studied crossbreeding emerges as a scientific and practical solution that preserves local breeds and gradually improves their productivity, instead of replacing them entirely with imported breeds that may not tolerate the Egyptian climate and whose costs the simple breeder cannot afford.
