Middle East and North Africa: Egypt – Farmer-to-Farmer Program (FtF)

Using Volunteer Experts to Improve Private Agricultural Operations

Volunteer Experts Help Improve Private Egyptian Agricultural Enterprises

The five-year, USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (FtF) volunteer program in the Middle East and North Africa region is providing its beneficiaries with training in farming technology that is strengthening local agricultural systems to improve food security and increase farmers’ incomes.

The program focuses on agricultural communities in Egypt as part of a broader FtF consortium with Land O' Lakes and Winrock International. In addition to these partnerships, more than 170 volunteer agricultural experts will work with Egyptian farmers and producer groups to strengthen the horticulture and dairy industries throughout the country. The program expects to provide technical assistance to 3,780 direct beneficiaries and 27,040 indirect beneficiaries.

Dairy Value Chains and Horticulture Capacity Building

With an overwhelming majority of Egypt’s territory classified as desert land (around 97 percent), the amount of rural area left available for farming is small compared to the percentage of the population dependent on farming as its source of income. Egypt’s agriculture sector employs approximately 34 percent of the country’s labor force and is vital to its export strategy. With so Many reliant on the exports of a relatively small area, the work being done to improve efficiency, technology and capacity are imperative and have a widespread impact.

The Egypt FtF program works to ensure small farmers are fairly integrated into the horticultural export value chain by helping them build their business and technical capacities to meet market requirements. The expert volunteers work with farmers and producer groups to strengthen five components of the producer-to-market agricultural system: farm production; post-harvest handling; intermediate and final processing; retail and wholesale sales; and local and regional markets.

Specific trainings include:

• building local capacity needs such as greenhouse production, integrated crop management, sustainable practices and systems, and harvest techniques;
• market requirements such as quality, traceability and food safety protocols;
• marketing assistance and market intelligence; and
• Farming as a Business, which focus on developing business management skills with an emphasis on crop budgeting, production planning, profitability and simple business analysis techniques.

Dairy Business, Production Trainings

Within the dairy sector, the productivity of domestic cattle and buffalo, as well the consumptions of locally produced milk, is far below world standards. Buffalo only produce an average of 6 liters of milk per day while cows produce an average of about 10 liters. FtF Egypt is therefore focused on increasing income generated from dairy activities by implementing an extended milking season and improved safety and quality of dairy products. Another way of increasing milk production is cross-breeding domestic and Fresian cows as these cross-breeds produce about 15 liters per day.

Overcoming limited feed availability to provide proper feeding technologies and better vet and herd management technologies are at the core of ACDI/VOCA’s focus in the dairy industry. Agribusiness Linkages has helped to introduce modern technologies and techniques and establish associations such as the Egyptian Milk Producers Association to continue these learning services.

FtF Egypt is working to improve dairy producers’ business management skills to support these production increases. FtF volunteer consultants are addressing management issues through ACDI/VOCA’s Farming as a Business approach and through trainings on financial analysis, business planning, and market information.

Other USAID-funded Initiatives in Egypt

The Egypt FtF program is also maximizing industry benefits by leveraging existing projects in Egypt, such as the Global Development Alliance, a public-private partnership between ACDI/VOCA, USAID, and the H.J. Heinz company.

For more information, contact Helen Rubeiz at hrubeiz@acdivoca.org.

Updated:10/11

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