USAID Feed the Future Egypt Food Security and Agribusiness Support Project Triples Basil Production and Increases Farmer Incomes in Assiut

Walking through Al Sawalem Al Bahareya village in Assiut, a city in Northern Egypt, a sweet scent emanates from the local basil plant. Basil, the village’s main crop, occupies 700 feddans or about one-third of the village’s total 2,160 feddans of cultivated land. Basil is a strategic crop for farmers in this region since it is easy to grow and affordable to produce. Additionally, basil harvesting can occur as often as once per month over five successive months. This means it acts as a steady source of income for farmers and employment for laborers during the harvesting season. 

In 2015, farmers in Assiut experienced a sharp drop in production as a result of the downy mildew parasite that had begun to infect basil plants in the region. After several inconsistent harvesting seasons, many farmers decided to abandon their basil crops for more consistent crops.  

“The basil farmers were not able to identify the type of pest that affected their basil and damaged the crop, which made them decide to remove such a strategic crop from their lands,” said engineer Eslam Al Adawy, technical advisor of Feed the Future Egypt Food Security and Agribusiness Support (FAS) project. 

Farmer Abdel Mola Bakry, a board member of Al Sawalem Al Bahareya Agriculture Association and owner of 20 feddans, including five feddans cultivated with basil, said, “In the last three years, the basil leaves became yellow, with dark dots on the back, and the stem dropped the leaves which decreased the production to 300 kg per feddan for the second and third harvest. We barely harvested three times, while we were used to harvesting five times a season in the last years. This was the reason why we decided to remove the basil crop from our lands and replace it with a more profitable crop.” 

Additionally, Ayman Solhy, farmer and owner of four feddans, told FAS, “I used to produce an average of 4,750 kg of basil per season from the five periods of harvesting. When I faced downy mildew three years ago, my average production decreased to 1,600 kg per year. I had no access to finance and was not able to hire enough workers for harvesting, land preparation, and transportation. I decided to remove the basil and replaced it with more profitable crops like wheat.” 

On the marketing side, Hassan Thabet, a local trader who made a prior agreement with the farmers to buy their basil production in return for providing the farmers with advance payments, fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides, advised that for the last two years, the demand in the market for basil was weak. This resulted in the low selling price of basil and, therefore, lower incomes for farmers. “Farmers need to use organic spray in order to enable the export of basil, and we need to explore new market channels for basil,” they said. 

With the support of the FAS project, which aims to increase the incomes of smallholder farmers, the problem was identified, and the farmers were advised on the appropriate pesticide to face downy mildew.  

“We did a lot of research to identify the main cause of the problem facing the basil, asked the herbs and spices experts, surfed the internet about basil diseases, until we discovered downy mildew. We provided farmers with the technical support to control downy mildew, which resulted in raising the basil productivity to reach 700 kg per feddan for the second through the fifth harvests and increased the harvest frequency back to five times per season instead of three,” said Al Adawy. 

To combat this, FAS project interventions have been very instrumental in aiding qualifying farmers to produce high-quality basil crops, in accordance with the required specifications of the local and export markets. According to Al-Adawy, “We trained the farmers on identifying the targeted pest, the use of organic chemicals, the time of spraying, and the maximum residue levels in order to enable exports of basil production and to generate higher incomes for farmers. The total production of basil per feddan reached 4,700 kg per feddan in the five rounds of harvest compared to 1,600 kg per feddan, with an average increase in sales of [$2,327] 40,000 EGP compared to [$814.30] 14,400 EGP per season, which resulted in a tremendous increase in the incomes of basil farmers in Assuit.”