Egypt

البطاطس

Year
2007
Production
2 860 000 tons
Harvested area
259 350 acres
Yield
11.04 tons/acre

Source: FAOSTAT

Potatoes were introduced to Egypt during the 1800s, and large scale cultivation began during the First World War, when British colonial officials encouraged production to feed their troops. After the war, however, expansion of potato growing was hampered by the poor quality of imported seed and by farmers' inexperience with the crop.

That has changed. Since 1961, Egypt's irrigated potato production - concentrated in the Nile River delta in the north - has expanded at a rate of more than 5 percent per year. Between 1990 and 2007, annual output rose from 1.76 million tons to some 2.86 million tons, making Egypt Africa's No. 1 potato producer.

Egypt also ranks among the world's top potato exporters - in 2004, exports totalled more than 420 000 tons of fresh potatoes and almost 20 000 tons of frozen potato products, destined mainly for markets in Europe.

Further details from CIP's World Potato Atlas