Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced, on Saturday, October 24, 2026, raising the procurement price of an ardeb of local wheat from 2,500 pounds ($51.76) to 2,650 pounds ($54.87) in the coming winter season, an increase of 150 pounds ($3.11) per ardeb, or 6%. He also announced raising the procurement price of a ton of sugar beet from 2,000 pounds ($41.41) to 2,300 pounds ($47.62), and to 2,400 pounds ($49.69) in newly reclaimed land, in his closing speech at the “Egypt Forum 2026.”
The announced measures included an initiative to prepare one million feddans of smallholdings, of less than two feddans each, for wheat cultivation, with the cost of government agricultural mechanization services cut by up to 50%, and an exemption for violating rice farmers from water-waste fines. Ahmed Adham, head of the Directorates, Cooperatives and Training Sector at the Ministry of Agriculture, described the increase as direct support for farmers that encourages them to expand strategic crops, and said fertilizer distribution for the winter season begins on November 1 through the “Farmer Card.”
On the other hand, Farid Wasel, deputy head of the House of Representatives’ Agriculture Committee, said the appropriate price is no less than 3,000 pounds ($62.11) per ardeb, and that a fair price is close to 3,500 pounds ($72.46) because of rising production input costs. Committee member Raef Tamraz submitted a briefing request to the ministers of supply and agriculture calling for raising the price by between 500 and 1,000 pounds ($10.35 and $20.70) per ardeb. The cost of cultivating a feddan of wheat is about 50,000 pounds ($1,035.20) according to parliamentary estimates, including rent, seeds, fertilizers and harvesting, while a feddan produces about 20 ardebs, or revenue of nearly 53,000 pounds ($1,097.31) at the new price.
The government had raised the procurement price of an ardeb last year from 2,300 pounds ($47.62) to 2,500 pounds. Egypt consumes between 8 and 8.5 million tons of wheat annually, and produces about 117 billion loaves of subsidized bread, according to Mohamed Khalil Shata, head of the Central Administration for Directorates at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Photo: Doaa Adel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
