The Frontiers of Corporate Food in Egypt

• Main Author: Dixon, Marion W.
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2023
• Subjects: Avian flu
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192842985.001.0001

Abstract Corporations have had a growing role in agriculture and food around the world. The Frontiers of Corporate Food in Egypt details the development and growth of a corporate agri-food system in Egypt. This system includes food processing and an animal protein complex largely for corporate consumer markets in the country—from street kiosks to fast food outlets to hypermarkets—and fresh fruits and vegetables largely for export. The book demonstrates the importance of reclaimed lands, or frontiers, for the development and growth of the corporate agri-food system from the 1980s through the 2011 popular uprising. Various forces, including multiple threats from plant and animal diseases (the Avian flu, especially) have pushed and pulled agribusiness to new lands. This system’s growth has also rested on imports and contract farming. As a result, dependence on food imports has grown. What agriculturalists grow has changed toward processing vegetables and animal protein, and what Egyptians eat has changed toward foods/drinks high in unhealthy fats, sugars, and sodium. Through mixed-methods research in Egypt between 2008 and 2012, this book shows how the growth of corporate food has contributed to growing food insecurity and to multiplying threats to public health from chronic and infectious diseases.