Egypt’s state-owned Sugar and Integrated Industries Company will, for the first time, process sugar beets cultivated on 100,000 feddans (42,000 hectares) by the Armed Forces’ Future of Egypt project, in a move designed to boost domestic production and reduce dependence on imports.
The delivery, scheduled for the 2026 harvest season, is expected to yield 2.4 million tons of beet, which will be converted into roughly 400,000 tons of sugar, according to the company’s chairman, Salah Fathy who spoke to Al Manassa.
The Future of Egypt for Sustainable Development Authority made its public debut in May 2022, when President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated the military-led agricultural megaproject west of Cairo. Located along the Rod El-Farag–Dabaa corridor, the initiative is part of a broader land reclamation effort covering 800,000 feddans in the so-called New Delta.
Egypt’s total sugar production rose 34% in the season ending August 2025, reaching 2.964 million tons, up from 2.215 million tons in 2024, according to Al Arabiya. The increase is largely driven by expanded sugar beet cultivation.
The government plans to scale up production via the Holding Company for Food Industries and its subsidiaries, Fathy explained to Al Manassa, in a push towards sugar self-sufficiency and food security stabilization.
Although total beet cultivation remained stable, part of the crop was shifted to newly reclaimed desert lands managed by the military’s Future of Egypt project. Meanwhile, older Delta farmland was redirected to wheat, due to the beet crop’s resilience to soil salinity, Fathy explained to Al Manassa.
“This is not a reduction in cultivated area,” he added. “It’s a change in agricultural policy.”
The government plans to convert 300,000 feddans of Delta beet land to wheat, an informed source on Egypt's agricultural policy previously revealed to Al Manassa. This comes after last season’s record 750,000 feddans of beet overwhelmed national processing capacity.
In August, authorities cut the beet procurement price by 16%, bringing it down to 2,000 Egyptian pounds per ton. Industry sources say the move is intended to steer farmers towards wheat and shore up Egypt’s grain reserves.
Egypt’s strategic sugar reserves currently cover 11 months of national demand, Fathy said. The company delivers 95,000 tons monthly to the local market, with 65,000 tons distributed through the ration card system and 30,000 tons sold via free market channels.
