Too Much & Too Little

Along with the Aswan Dam and new industry, President Nasser's ten-year development plan has given Egyptians a bigger appetite. Since the plan was started in 1960, it has added 1,000,000 workers to the country's payrolls, increased both total national income and production by about 30%. It has thus given millions of Egyptians the wherewithal to improve their meager diets, and that fact has created a problem that the planners did not anticipate: an acute food shortage.

Egyptians can now afford to eat more than their farmers can produce. Demand for food has been twice as great as expected, and consumption of imported meat has soared 58%. Prices have spiraled, the black market flourishes and queues for food are an everyday sight in Cairo. Last week, faced with the unpleasant fact that a measure of austerity is the inescapable price of a crash development scheme, the government took the drastic step of banning the slaughter and sale of meat three days out of each week. It's back to corn and beans for the Egyptians on Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, though tourist hotels will still be allowed to serve meat daily. Violators could get up to one year in jail. To ease the shortage, the government has also set aside $90 million in precious foreign exchange to import Russian frozen fish and American chicken and canned meats.

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