Reducing Postharvest Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
83
threshing machines, and then winnow the crop using the wind. On-farm storage involves sun-
drying of the cereals and moisture content at start of storage is rarely a problem, but
contamination with impurities and losses from pests is serious. At farmer level grain may be
stored in mudded granary bins in or outside the house for 3-12 months, often after admixing
the grain with oven ash, salt or chilli pepper. Or in jute or plastic bags or heaps in a room in
their houses – due to poor hygiene, rodents and insects attack the stored products. Maize cobs
are stored in the eaves of the house’s roof and often suffer from insect or rodent attack. In the
villages near the desert and in the oases, grains are sometimes stored underground - using
conical pits that can be up to 3 metres deep – the CO2 produced by the crop accumulates in the
pit and insects die, but the pits are laborious to construct, monitor and remove grain from. The
wheat grain is usually washed before milling and drying it on mats in the sun.
The Egyptian government has been negotiating with the governments of Uganda, Sudan and
Ethiopia to plant wheat and other crops in their countries to help meet Egyptian consumer
demands and increase control over the country’s food security.
The government stores both the wheat it buys locally and the wheat it imports in shounas
mainly (Wally, 2016). Shounas11 are a system of traditional open flat storage where sacks are
simply stacked on top of each other usually under a roof with no walls. The shounas range in
capacity from 6,000 to 8,000 tonnes. The shounas can only accept wheat during a fixed period
(~3 months) set by the MALR. Theoretically there are three quality grades, but most wheat
receives the lowest price, payment is supposed to be within 48 hours. The poor quality of this
storage is estimated to cause 5-10% losses from exposure to weather and pests, there are also
reports of fumigation failures. Some small producers struggle to arrange transport of their
surplus grain to the shouna, and so many sell to local traders who purchase it volumetrically
using an ‘ardab’, and then sell it on to the shouna by weight. The shounas are supposed to be
emptied within a 6 month period, to ensure they can be cleaned before loading of the next
year’s harvest, but storage increasingly exceeds 6 months (FAO, 2015). Of the 364 shounas , 264
shonas are in disrepair and need to be upgraded. Only 88 have concrete floors (FAO, 2015). A
large project is currently underway to refurbish 93 shounas which will include modernized
warehouses with screening, drying, and grading capabilities and state-of-the-art stock and
quality management systems. The project is being undertaken by the Ministry of Defense’s
Engineering Authority which is building the warehousing and a U.S. company, Blumberg Grain,
which is equipping this new storage. Recently, Egypt also received Italian, UAE and Saudi funds
to replace some of the shounas with modern silos.
Public sector mills represent about 73% of the total milling capacity in Egypt, the Government
is expected to retain control of the milling industry given the strategic nature of wheat in Egypt
(Mansour & Iglesias, 2011). There are 126 public sector mills associated with Food Industries
Holding Company, mostly small or medium in size producing 82% flour for subsidized bread,
76% flour for semi-subsidised bread (tabaki) and 72% flour for white high quality flat bread,
European bread, biscuits, pastries and pasta. There are about 36 private sector commercial
mills with a total capacity of 9,000 tons per day (2.8 million tons annually), they are only
supposed to mill imported wheat and to produce 72% flour, but many mill locally produced
wheat. Bread is produced in 19,000 bakeries, and 75% of the bread produced is subsidised
baladi bread made from 82% wheat flour.
11 Shouna’s are open spaces ranging in size from 2,000 – 20,000 m2 . They are typically enclosed by a simple wire fence, and
may have a floor and a roof under which grain in jute bags is stacked and stored. Some shounas also have warehouses.