Denial: The Name Of A River, And The Prospect Egypt Faces Of Losing The Nile

Egypt will be facing uncertain prospects When The Nile Runs Dry. As if the post-Mubarak economic situation were not already bad enough, it may be getting even worse:

A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice and corn for consumption back home.

...These land grabs shrink the food supply in famine-prone African nations and anger local farmers, who see their governments selling their ancestral lands to foreigners. They also pose a grave threat to Africa’s newest democracy: Egypt.

Egypt annually consumes 18 million tons of wheat, and more than half is imported from abroad, making it the world's leading importer of wheat. Egypt is also the leading recipient of subsidized bread--for which the government spends about $2 billion each year. The 60% of Egyptian families who rely on that subsidy have come to depend on it as a matter of course.

The grain that Egypt does produce depends on the Nile River, upon which its agriculture is completely dependent. The Nile flows through Ethiopia and the Sudan first before reaching Egypt. But now there are land grabs in the south further threatening Egypt's ability to put bread on the table.

Part of Egypt's problem includes a certain irony that when it comes to the Nile, not everyone is going to continue to honor the agreement that gave Egypt 75% of the Nile's water, as the land grab continues:

Unfortunately for Egypt, two of the favorite targets for land acquisitions are Ethiopia and Sudan, which together occupy three-fourths of the Nile River Basin. Today’s demands for water are such that there is little left of the river when it eventually empties into the Mediterranean.

The Nile Waters Agreement, which Egypt and Sudan signed in 1959, gave Egypt 75 percent of the river’s flow, 25 percent to Sudan and none to Ethiopia. This situation is changing abruptly as wealthy foreign governments and international agribusinesses snatch up large swaths of arable land along the Upper Nile. While these deals are typically described as land acquisitions, they are also, in effect, water acquisitions.

Now, when competing for Nile water, Cairo must deal with several governments and commercial interests that were not party to the 1959 agreement. Moreover, Ethiopia — never enamored of the agreement — has announced plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam on its branch of the Nile that would reduce the water flow to Egypt even more. [emphasis added]

There is a word for the worsening economic problems that Egypt faces.
That word is tzuris--and if Egypt was smart, they would start keeping their own agreements with Israel, so that they will share their water technology with them.

But I wouldn't count on it.

Technorati Tag: Egypt and Nile.