I was attending a political meeting where we were discussing the challenges facing Egypt amid the ongoing dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Egypt’s water rights, and the legitimate concerns this raises about the future of water and food security in our country.
The discussion focused on limited water resources, population growth, agricultural expansion, and the need to provide food for more than one hundred million citizens.
During the discussion, a fact was raised that deserves reflection: Egypt is one of the world’s largest wheat importers, with its annual import requirements reaching approximately 13 million tons, although estimates vary from one season to another.
The question was: How can we increase domestic wheat production when the challenge is not simply the availability of arable land, but also the availability of sufficient irrigation water?
At that point, I found myself raising a different question: Why do we consume so much wheat in the first place? Why do we assume that Egyptian bread must be made primarily from wheat, as though nature had created no other crops and science had made no progress since humans first learned how to bake bread?
Could one solution to Egypt’s water crisis be hidden inside the loaf of bread itself?
Bread Is More Than Food
We Egyptians do not simply call bread khubz. We call it eish, a word that also means “life” itself.
Bread is part of our culture, our collective memory, and our economic history. It is the food most commonly found on Egyptian tables and a major source of daily calories, particularly for low-income households.
For decades, bread subsidy policies have helped reinforce this dependence, making bread an essential component of the Egyptian diet.
But I ask: Must everything we have become accustomed to remain exactly as it is?
High wheat consumption is not merely an agricultural or economic fact. It is also the result of dietary and social choices, as well as public policies that have accumulated over generations.
Therefore, thinking about reducing our dependence on wheat should not be limited to increasing its productivity, expanding cultivated areas, or searching for new import markets. It should also extend to reconsidering the composition of our food itself.
I am not suggesting that we abandon bread. Rather, I am suggesting that we rethink its ingredients.
Driven by scientific curiosity, I began researching a question: Is wheat the only crop capable of being used to make bread?
The scientific answer is no.
Modern food science has demonstrated that bread can be produced using other types of grains and crops, either individually or blended with wheat flour.
These include sorghum, millet, maize, chickpeas, fava beans, lentils, sweet potatoes, and other crops that can be incorporated into bread in carefully studied proportions.
Some of these crops are more tolerant of drought or salinity under certain agricultural conditions, while others offer high nutritional value, particularly in terms of protein, fiber, or certain minerals.
Food science has also developed methods for improving dough texture through enzymes, fermentation, milling techniques, and natural ingredients that help bind the dough together.
Egyptian research studies have already explored the production of traditional Egyptian baladi bread using mixtures of wheat and millet flour, with encouraging results in terms of consumer acceptance for certain formulations.
So we are not talking about science fiction. We are talking about existing scientific possibilities that need to move from laboratories and research centers into factories, bakeries, and markets.
Why not make the invention of a new Egyptian loaf a national project bringing together scientific research, industry, and food security?
Here, however, we must be scientifically precise: not every alternative to wheat necessarily saves water.
The issue is therefore not simply replacing one crop with another. It is about identifying the agricultural, nutritional, and industrial combination that delivers the greatest nutritional and economic value while consuming the least amount of our water resources.
I propose introducing a new scientific benchmark:
How many cubic meters of Egyptian water are required to produce 1,000 loaves of bread of acceptable quality and appropriate nutritional value?
We should then add other measures, including production costs, energy consumption, dependence on imports, nutritional value, and the industry’s ability to expand.
In this way, we move beyond thinking about a single crop and begin thinking about an integrated food system.
Can We Change People’s Tastes?
Some may argue that Egyptians are accustomed to the taste of traditional baladi bread and that changing its ingredients could encounter social resistance.
But are human tastes fixed and incapable of changing?
Studies in nutrition science and human behavior indicate that food preferences can change, and that repeated exposure to a new taste may gradually increase its acceptance.
A person may begin to become accustomed to a new taste after approximately three weeks of repeated exposure, although this period is not a fixed scientific rule. Some people need more time, and responses vary according to age, previous food experiences, and the nature of the food itself.
We know from everyday experience that many foods we disliked as children eventually became favorites as we grew older. Entire societies have also transformed their dietary habits over generations.
If people can change their habits in clothing, work, communication, and technology, why should we assume that their eating habits cannot evolve?
Changing dietary patterns is possible, but it requires both science and policy.
Science that understands taste, nutrition, adaptation, and human behavior; and public policy that manages change effectively, using incentives rather than coercion, and persuasion rather than imposition.
In my view, this is the essence of the issue.
One Egyptian Governorate Could Be the Beginning of the Solution
Why not select one Egyptian governorate, or a group of its districts and cities, to serve as a pilot location for a project called the “Egyptian Bread of the Future”?
The experiment would begin through cooperation among universities, agricultural research centers, food technology institutes, bakeries, and food industries, with the participation of experts in nutrition, economics, and behavioral psychology.
We would produce several types of blended bread using different proportions of wheat flour, sorghum, millet, maize, and legumes.
The government would offer time-limited incentives to participating bakeries, including assistance with equipment upgrades, training, and quality assurance. Consumers would also receive incentives to try the new products, such as introductory price reductions.
We would use scientific methods to measure public acceptance of the taste and the effect of repeated exposure on changing food preferences.
The experiment could begin with three weeks of repeated exposure and tasting, followed by monitoring over three or six months to determine whether consumers continue choosing the new bread after the incentives have ended.
The experiment should also include comparable control areas, and an independent research institution should be responsible for evaluating the results.
Success should not be measured by whether people try a new loaf once. It should be measured by whether they voluntarily choose it and continue buying it because they find it good and suitable.
Successful policy does not force people to change their habits. It creates the conditions that make change possible, acceptable, and sustainable.
If the experiment succeeds, it can gradually be expanded to other governorates, taking into account differences in dietary habits, purchasing power, and crop availability.
Who Should Be Responsible for This Innovation?
I envision a national program bringing together the Ministries of Agriculture, Supply and Internal Trade, Higher Education and Scientific Research, Industry, and Water Resources, alongside universities, research centers, and the private sector.
However, I am not calling for the establishment of another bureaucratic agency. Rather, I propose assigning clear responsibility to a scientific and industrial partnership with defined objectives, a timetable, and measurable performance indicators.
Researchers and industry should be challenged with practical questions:
Can the proportion of wheat in bread be reduced without compromising its quality?
Can its nutritional value be improved by incorporating legumes?
Which crops deliver the highest food productivity per cubic meter of irrigation water?
What is the cost of the new loaf compared with traditional bread?
Can existing bakeries produce it without major investments?
And will consumers accept it after a period of experimentation?
These questions could become subjects for university research, master’s and doctoral theses, and graduation projects. They could also provide the foundation for an entirely new food industry.
I believe the state’s role should be to finance fundamental research, establish standards, provide incentives, and create an environment that encourages competition and innovation, rather than monopolizing the production of the new bread or imposing a single formulation on everyone.
What If We Saved Part of Our Wheat Consumption?
Let us assume that, following scientific and industrial trials, we succeed in replacing 10% or 15% of the wheat flour used in bread production with suitable alternative ingredients.
The figure may seem small, but when applied to a country with Egypt’s population and consumption levels, it could represent substantial quantities of wheat.
This would not necessarily mean that wheat imports would decline by the same percentage, because wheat is also used in other food industries, and some alternative ingredients might themselves need to be imported.
Nevertheless, we would have taken the first step toward diversifying our food sources, reducing our dependence on a single crop, and creating new opportunities in agriculture, industry, and scientific research.
If it is demonstrated that certain formulations genuinely save Egyptian water resources, we will also have added a new dimension to water security.
And if they do not achieve these savings, the knowledge we gain will prevent us from making costly decisions based on incorrect assumptions.
Science does not mean proving that our ideas are right. It means testing them and accepting the results.
Water Security Is Not Just About Dams
There is no doubt that defending Egypt’s water rights and reaching fair, binding rules for managing transboundary dams are fundamental matters of Egyptian national security.
However, I believe that national security cannot be achieved through diplomacy and agreements alone, nor through military power alone. It also depends on society’s ability to use science and technology to expand its available options.
The more efficiently we use our resources, the more diversified our food sources become, and the more advanced our industries grow, the better equipped we will be to confront external pressures and economic and climate fluctuations.
Defending our water rights must not become an alternative to reforming our domestic policies for managing water and food resources. Likewise, improving water-use efficiency must never become an excuse for relinquishing those rights.
These are two complementary paths.
Food security, therefore, is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture alone, just as water security is not the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
Both are responsibilities shared by the state and society, requiring scientific knowledge, economic management, and public policy to work together.
Finally… Can We Change the Question?
I left the meeting thinking that many of our problems do not stem solely from limited resources. Sometimes, they also stem from the limitations of the questions we ask.
When water becomes scarce, we ask how we can obtain more of it.
When wheat prices rise, we ask where we can import it from.
When the population increases, we ask how we can produce more loaves of bread.
But what if we asked a different question:
Can we reinvent the loaf itself?
I am not calling for the abolition of traditional baladi bread, nor for changing Egyptians’ diets through a government decree, nor for placing the burden of a crisis they did not create on ordinary citizens.
I am calling for the use of science and innovation, and for carefully designed community-based experiments that respect freedom of choice, use incentives, and measure results transparently.
I am also calling for us to view dietary habits as human choices capable of evolving, rather than as eternal facts of nature.
Changing the loaf is not merely a matter of changing the flour. It is about changing how we think about resource management, our relationship with science, and the ability of public policy to transform innovation into a social habit.
The future of Egyptian food security may begin with a scientific experiment in one governorate, rather than a decision imposed on the entire country.
Nations do not confront their crises solely through the water, land, and financial resources they possess, but also through their scientific imagination, their courage to ask questions, and their ability to turn knowledge into policy.
Perhaps the loaf of bread we hold in our hands every day contains an idea for Egypt’s future that we have not yet thought about deeply enough.
For those interested in learning more about statistics on wheat cultivation and imports in Egypt, the following link provides additional information:
Wheat Cultivation and Import Statistics in Egypt – Google Docs
