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Mabrook - A grape farmer in Egypt

Faced with poor harvests and low product prices, Egyptian grape farmer Mabrook Khamees struggles to support his family, but is optimistic that training from FAO can help reduce further food loss.

Country Egypt

Duration 8m6s

Edit Version Clean

Video Type B Roll Video

Date 09/19/2018 9:05 PM

File size 946.58 MB

Unique ID UF2RQP

All editorial uses permitted

Production details and shotlist

UNFAO Source FAO Video

Shotlist SHOTLIST:

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

1. Various of grape farmer Mabrook Khamees pruning grapes

2. Khamees placing grapes gently in basket

3. Damaged leaves on vines

4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“As a farmer, of course I love to be on the farm, to touch the bunches of grapes and check them carefully for problems, to examine the leaves and branches for disease.”

5. Khamees passing grapes to his daughter

6. Various of Khamees’s daughter placing grapes in box

7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“I like to bring my children with me to the farm to teach them what is right and wrong, and how to do things.”

8. Khamees walking with box of grapes between vines

9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“Food for me means my family, which is my life.”

Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 10, 2018

10. Various of horse-drawn carts on roads

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“I came from my town in Beheira to this desert town to make a living. I had no job there so I moved here.”

12. Various of Mabrook seated by well

13. Water flowing in well

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

14. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“Last year the grapes were smaller, and the results weren’t good."

15. Khamees pruning grapes

16. Khamees’s wife pruning grapes

17. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“In the past few years, we sold grapes for as low as 2.5 and 1.5 Egyptian pounds (8 - 14 cents USD), which was lower than what we spent on production.”

18. Various of Khamees and his son speaking to buyer and another farmer

19. Farmer writing in notebook

20. Dried grapes on vine

21. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“So we had to sell at a loss, instead of leaving grapes to rot on the vines. I would have been sadder to leave grapes to waste."

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

22. Various of Khamees and his children on motorbike

23. Khamees and his family seated at home eating

24. Khamees’s daughter eating

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

25. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“My monthly salary as a farmer is only 1000 Egyptian pounds (56 USD). It's nothing. I can’t afford to pay for my children's education."

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

26. Khamees’s son seated

27. Khamees looking on

28. Various of Khamees eating

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

29. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“One of my children is sick. I used to take him to the doctor, but stopped because I couldn’t afford the high cost of the treatment.”

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

30. Khamees standing with Yehia Salah, technical expert for FAO Egypt, and another farmer during training

31. Various of Khamees using instrument used to detect sugar levels in grapes

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

32. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“Through the project, I learned, for example, that the ideal sugar content when-grapes are ready for harvest is 20%.”

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

33. Khamees, Salah and farmer walking

34. Various of Salah training Khamees and other farmer about roots

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

35. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“I learned the right amount of fertilizer to use to avoid over fertilization which harms the vine. It needs to be just right to benefit the crop without leading to more loss."

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

36. Various of Salah training farmers inside hut

37. Khamees picking grapes

38. Khamees pruning grapes

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 9, 2018

39. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“Another thing I learned was how to pick grapes properly, how to get just the right size by selecting medium-sized grapes that are not too small.”

40. Various of harvest underway

41. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“I respect food because I sweat and work so hard to get it.”

42. Khamees’s children seated

43. Various of truck driving away

44. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mabrook Khamees, grape farmer, saying:

“We’re optimistic about the coming years. We suffered big losses over the past few years. But we hope things will be better in the future. We are optimistic.”

45. Various of Khamees seated with his family

46. Grapes falling onto pile

Cairo, Egypt - July 6, 2018

47. Raisins

Bangar El Sokor, Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt - July 8, 2018

48. Khamees carrying box of grapes between vines

Ends

Script STORY:

After several years of poor harvests, and badly affected by low market prices, Egyptian grape farmer Mabrook Khamees worries about the future of both his family and a job that is close to his heart.

“As a farmer, of course I love to be on the farm, to touch the bunches of grapes and check them carefully for problems, to examine the leaves and branches for disease,” he says.

“I like to bring my children with me to the farm to teach them what is right and wrong, and how to do things.”

“Food for me means my family, which is my life,” he says.

Mabrook and his family migrated to the community of Bangar El Sokor in the Nile Delta to run a small plot growing flame seedless grapes.

“I came from my town in Beheira to this desert town to make a living. I had no job there so I moved here,” he says.

But he has struggled with low productivity.

“Last year the grapes were smaller, and the results weren’t good,” he says.

Worse still, market prices for grapes can drop dramatically, especially during harvest seasons when there is a glut of grapes and other fruit.

It can drop so low, in fact, that many farmers leave the fruit to rot on the vines instead of losing money hiring laborers and other essentials needed to harvest.

“In the past few years, we sold grapes for as low as 2.5 and 1.5 Egyptian pounds (8 - 14 cents USD), which was lower than what we spent on production,” he says. “So we had to sell at a loss, instead of leaving grapes to rot on the vines. I would have been sadder to leave grapes to waste.”

Mabrook’s is not an isolated case.

Food that gets spilled or spoilt before it reaches its final product or retail stage is called food loss, and it’s a huge problem in Egypt and other countries in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region.

25-35% percent of grapes are lost before they reach the consumer.

Similarly, 50 percent of tomatoes are lost through inefficient practices, helping to en-trench poverty throughout the agricultural sector.

“My monthly salary as a farmer is only 1000 Egyptian pounds (56 USD). It's nothing. I can’t afford to pay for my children's education,” says Mabrook, the sole breadwinner for a family of five.

“One of my children is sick. I used to take him to the doctor, but stopped because I couldn’t afford the high cost of the treatment,” he says.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is training grape farmers how to recognize and treat disease, and when to harvest to avoid unnecessary loss.

Mabrook has learned how technology can help to improve the marketability of the grapes. For example, a refractometer can be used to test the levels of sugar in the fruit as it grows.

“Through the project, I learned, for example, that the ideal sugar content when grapes are ready for harvest is 20%,” Mabrook says.

“I learned the right amount of fertilizer to use to avoid over fertilization which harms the vine. It needs to be just right to benefit the crop without leading to more loss.”

Farmers and laborers are also trained how to handle and package grapes during the crucial harvest, when many grapes are damaged.

“Another thing I learned was how to pick grapes properly, how to get just the right size by selecting medium-sized grapes that are not too small,” Mabrook says.

FAO has trained over 2,000 Egyptian farmers like him in food loss reduction across the country.

“I respect food because I sweat and work so hard to get it,” he says.

Mabrook is confident that with the correct knowledge and procedures, things will get better.

“We’re optimistic about the coming years. We suffered big losses over the past few years. But we hope things will be better in the future. We are optimistic,” he says.

Despite being one of the world’s top five producers of grapes, Egypt is a net importer of raisins.

So as well as training farmers, FAO is setting up a raisin drying facility, so that grapes can be dried when market prices are low and farmers like Mabrook don’t have to lose out.

FAO collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation of Egypt in the training programme, supported by Italian Agency for Development Cooperation

FAO is working for a future without food loss or waste, as part of its goal to achieve Ze-ro Hunger by 2030.

Ends

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