The Quantity and Value Estimations of Vegetable Oil Imports Required for Food Security in Egypt

Document Type : Research articles.

Abstract

The issue of food security became key issues in the world today, because
of its economic, social, and political impacts. The monopolistic countries,
which produce and export strategic food commodities, apply pressure on
developing countries for political and economic reasons. Rising food prices
significantly due to the high oil prices, bad weather, and the production of
biofuels from strategic crops add more pressure on food security. It become
necessary to maintain a strategic stockpile of strategic food commodities such
as vegetable oil to offer the consumer needs for a period of six months at least,
such policy is a kind of food security to avoid the fluctuations of world market
prices.
The current status of vegetable oil, strategic reserves, was amounted to
about 161 thousand tons, which was enough for domestic consumption for
only 79 days. The value food security coefficient of vegetable oil, during the
study period, was only 0.217. Achieving the level of 0.5 of security coefficient
requires the importation of 1189.4,and 1426.8 thousand tons of oil in 2015 and
2020 respectively. While achieving the full level of the food security
coefficient, it requires the importation of 1435.7 and 1673.1 thousand tons of
oil in 2015 and 2020 respectively. The study results recommend the increase
of food security coefficient for the oils from 0.217 to 0.5 and having strategic
stockpile of oil to offer domestic consumption for six months at least.
Policies for achieving oil food security would include the following:
1- Expansion of different oil crop production, especially the area of cotton.
2 - Rationalization the consumption of oils in urban and rural areas.
3- Adopt policies for maintain a strategic stockpile of vegetable oil to offer the
consumer needs at right time and place with sufficient quantities.
4- Support the import of oil to achieve target levels of food security coefficient
of the years 2015.2020.

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