As part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) cooperation with Egypt, its Africa Phytosanitary Programme (APP) conducted a training course recently to establish a comprehensive database for monitoring, diagnosis, and follow-up on the pests affecting Egypt’s crops.
The course, held last week under the supervision of the FAO’s Technical Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), was conducted by Egyptian trainers like Asmaa Emad, an agricultural quarantine specialist.
She trained colleagues from agricultural quarantine departments in five different governorates on the new digital applications that will be used in monitoring, diagnosing, and reporting pests that threaten fruit crops in Egypt.
Cooperation between Egypt and a number of international organisations in this field comes after a surge in Egypt’s agricultural exports in recent years.
The country has maintained its position as the world’s top exporter of oranges for six consecutive years, ranked first globally in 2024 in frozen strawberry exports, and was fifth in the world for grape exports. Export volumes reached 2.3 million tons of oranges, 1.3 million tons of potatoes, 187,000 tons of grapes, 40,000 tons of fresh strawberries, and 266,000 tons of sweet potatoes.
The figures are expected to rise further with the release of those for the 2025 season, Mohamed Al-Mansi, head of the Central Administration for Plant Quarantine (CAPQ), said at the opening of the APP.
“The program is meant to enhance the technical capacities of participating countries in phytosanitary issues and safeguarding agricultural production and to ensure safe and fair trade among nations,” he noted.
The workshop was held as Egypt’s National Food Safety Authority announced that a delegation from the European Commission for Food Safety had commended the significant decline in the rejection rate of Egyptian citrus exports to the European Union, going from 15 to 2.1 per cent during the 2024 export season.
Egypt’s fruit and vegetables have gained a good reputation in international markets over the past few years despite global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and disruptions in global supply chains, Al-Mansi said. He added that more effort is needed to maintain the competitive standing of Egyptian produce worldwide.
He said that the IPPC initiative, affiliated with the FAO in Rome, to develop mechanisms for pest monitoring and control across the African countries and starting with Egypt aligns with the country’s strategic agricultural objectives.
It seeks to provide updated and easily accessible databases that enable agricultural quarantine experts to record data from their field visits to fruit and vegetable farms through a central data hub managed by the Near East and North Africa Plant Protection Organisation (NEPPO).
The system facilitates rapid recommendations for addressing pest detections affecting crops and helps determine whether pest-control interventions require financial or logistical support from the FAO or affiliated international organisations involved in implementing the project, Al-Mansi explained.
“The global food security system suffers from losses of up to 40 per cent of agricultural production due to pest infestations. This percentage rises to 60 per cent in Africa, and another 20 per cent is lost during post-harvest handling, transport, and distribution,” said Islam Farahat Abul-Ela, a phytosanitary expert and coordinator of the APP at the Phytosanitary and Agricultural Quarantine Department of Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture.
“As a result, only 20 per cent of the total crops cultivated in Africa reach markets for actual consumption. This challenge led the FAO in Rome to launch the IPPC in 1951,” he added.
“The agreement was revised in 1996 following the establishment of the World Trade Organisation on 1 January 1995 in order to align its provisions with global trade standards. The revision enabled the 185 member states [of the WTO] to safely import and export agricultural products by ensuring measures that prevent the cross-border transmission of plant pests.”
“The IPPC established the APP to address the high rates of agricultural losses in Africa, thereby contributing to food security, poverty reduction, and eventually the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” he stated.
According to CAPQ expert Ahmed Al-Gamal, enabling exporting and importing countries to share pest-monitoring data achieves important economic objectives.
“These include reducing shipment waiting times at ports, which in turn lowers transport and operational costs, leading to better economic returns. Moreover, they ensure greater safety for importing countries in receiving the fruit and vegetable shipments they require. Over the long term, the system enhances the international reputation of Egypt’s agricultural exports,” Al-Gamal said.
Egypt’s agricultural exports have recorded annual growth rates of 10 to 15 per cent over the past five years, expanding the reach of Egyptian produce to 100 markets between 2019 and 2024.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the total volume of Egyptian agricultural exports rose from five million tons in 2020 to 8.6 million tons in 2024, as part of a national strategy targeting non-traditional and distant markets such as Canada, Australia, Japan, and Latin America.
Nader Noureddin, a former FAO expert, said that the organisation has recently been working to adopt policies and programmes based on rapid response mechanisms to address crises that could affect global food security, such as floods, extreme weather events, or epidemics, by prioritising preventive measures over remedial ones that are implemented only after crops have been affected.
He added that Egypt was chosen to launch the APP because of its growing importance as one of the world’s leading exporters of fruit and vegetables. He noted that the FAO system has already been implemented in Egyptian farms that export potatoes to European Union countries, where crops are monitored and tracked from planting until export.
Noureddin said that most EU countries are too cold in winter to produce the fruit and vegetables they need. As a result, they rely heavily on imports from the warmer regions of southern Europe, such as southern Italy, Spain, and Greece, and from southern Mediterranean countries including Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, along with African countries like Senegal.
These countries supply the EU with 48 varieties of fruit and vegetables in winter.
“The FAO’s new system for pest monitoring and control will enhance the reputation of Egyptian exports, facilitate their entry into global markets, and protect importing countries from shortages in their domestic markets,” Noureddin said.
“When a shipment is rejected due to pest contamination, the importing country faces a shortage of the affected commodity until alternative supplies are secured, which can lead to higher food prices as a result of reduced availability in local markets.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 November, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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