Would Climate Change Affect the Imports of Cereals? The Case of Egypt

Abstract

Climate change is recognized to be the greatest environmental problem facing the whole world due to its adverse impacts especially on the agricultural production, which is expected to vary across the countries. Within the context of Egypt’s dependence on cereal imports to fill its production gap, this chapter shows that the climate change is expected to indirectly affect these cereal imports, namely, wheat and maize, through affecting the cereal production in the major exporting countries.

Specifically, the chapter concludes a positive relationship between the Egyptian imports of wheat from the USA and the climate change presented in its impact on wheat production in the USA and on the contrary a neutral and negative relationships for both the Egyptian imports of wheat from Russia and imports of maize from the USA and Argentina.

Accordingly, the chapter recommends diversifying the import markets of cereals to Egypt to prevent the domination of few countries on the imports of such strategic commodities as wheat and maize, in addition to the urgency of enhancing the domestic production through applying the suitable adaptation and mitigation methods to face the expected negative impacts of climate change on cereal production in Egypt.