Figure 1:  Jumhuriyyat Misr 1955, p. 1.

Rethinking the Historical Connections between Chemical Fertilizer and Food in mid-century Egypt

by Omri Polatsek, MPIWG Berlin, TU Berlin

In a report published by the Permanent Council for the Development of National Production in 1955, the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser articulated for the first time the “economic philosophy of the revolution,” three years after it had seized power in Egypt (figure 1).

The report, which laid out the regime’s plans for agricultural and industrial development, emphasized the importance of establishing a local fertilizer industry in Egypt.

Linking mineral resource independence to the “economic goals of the revolution”, the report designated the fertilizer industry to be “at the forefront of the projects of [industrial] production.” As the “fertilizer crisis” during World War II was still fresh in the minds of policymakers, the report made it clear that a local fertilizer industry was essential for Egypt to regain economic sovereignty:

“While nitrogen fertilizers are the most common fertilizers used, we still rely on foreign supplies to meet our agricultural needs. This poses a clear danger to national production, especially in times of war when imports are not possible.” (Jumhuriyyat Misr 1955, p. 205)

Figure 1: The 1955 report outlines the “economic philosophy of the revolution” in its introduction.

The proposed solution was straightforward: establish an ammonia production plant (figure 2) powered by a hydroelectric power station (figure 3). The fertilizer industry scheme outlined in the report aimed to meet future consumption levels, based on Egypt’s imminent developmentalist program and its consequent industrialization.

Figure 2: The proposed scheme for the chemical plant, which would produce ammonia by the Haber-Bosch process.
Figure 3: The proposed scheme for the hydroelectric power station that would be erected in Aswan, in the South of Egypt.

More locally produced fertilizer would serve the country’s “economic development” by increasing food production to “guarantee a minimum standard of living” for Egypt’s growing population. Indeed, tackling the food/population gap was a central theme throughout the report and a major concern for the regime’s development program.

Those familiar with fertilizer history might find this report unremarkable. They might argue that this is another instance where WWII reveals the connection between nitrogen and food, pointing to how the Western soil crisis at the turn of the 19th century and the invention and commercialization of the Haber-Bosch process in the 1910s tied the Gordian knot between global food production and chemical fertilizers.

Both popular and academic literature on fertilizer history mostly follow a similar explanation: chemical fertilizer emerged as a result of a Western quest to feed a growing population by boosting food production. Indeed, many accounts cite the rise of chemical fertilizers as an inevitable solution to a Malthusian challenge: fertilizers cause rapid yield increases, restoring agricultural productivity in the face of food crises.

However, when viewed in the broader context of changing agro-food system dynamics over the 20th century, the 1955 report tells a different story.

It is the first time the Egyptian state envisioned using chemical fertilizer as a technology to supply food on a national level. Since its introduction to Egypt in 1900, fertilizer use grew exponentially (see figure 4), but it wasn’t until the 1950s that it truly emerged as a technology used to “feed the nation.”

Figure 4: Nitrogen chemical fertilizer imports to Egypt between 1906 and 1953. As two factories in Suez and Aswan came into operation during the 1950s, imports decreased drastically, but local consumption remained high.

Until the early 1920s,fertilizer use was mainly limited to wheat, a crop partially exported and partially consumed by urban elites. During the Great Depression (1929–1939), the use of fertilizer on cotton, Egypt’s economic backbone since the 19th century, increased significantly. By then, the fertilizer to be used on wheat, together with that for cotton, accounted for about two-thirds of all imports.

The early introduction of chemical fertilizer in Egypt and the interwar surge in consumption were catalyzed by the Nile Valley’s deep integration in global agro-food systems. In their attempts to balance trade sheets, Egyptian agriculturalists, industrialists, and financiers used fertilizers as a technology to respond to the ever-changing dynamics of Egypt’s integration into global agricultural markets.

Here, chemical fertilizer was envisioned as a solution to counter the effects of financial and ecological crises. By reducing production costs and expanding output, more profit would be generated for Egypt’s national economy and the financial elite.

It wasn’t until WWII that chemical fertilizers began to be associated with national food production. This shift, however, depended on another important transformation: the dietary transition of the Egyptian population. Before the 1940s, the staple crops for most Egyptians were maize and sorghum. The shift in wartime food policy meant wheat became the major component of the Egyptian popular diet.

By the 1950s, when the report was written, the Nasserist regime was already receiving annually increasing amounts of wheat from the US as part of its food support programs for allied countries. For American policymakers, supplying cheap wheat to aligned countries became a tool of international diplomacy after WWII.

For the Egyptian regime, cheap wheat was crucial for development efforts, which involved urbanizing peasants and creating a new industrial class. It is in this context that chemical fertilizer reemerged as a tool to reduce food prices and regain economic sovereignty.

More than just illustrating an “inherent” link between chemical fertilizers and food production, the 1955 report demonstrates that fertilizer became central to implement the developmentalist vision based on industrial agriculture and wheat- and meat-based diets in the aftermath of WWII.

This process was by no means technologically deterministic: both the growing usage of chemical fertilizers and the new industrial diet were criticized and contested in Egypt during the 20th century.

In this sense, the report not only calls into question conventional fertilizer historiography but also shows that chemical fertilizers emerged as an influential technology in modern history vis-à-vis transformations in global agriculture and industrial diets.


Omri Polatsek is a doctoral student at the Max Planck International Research “Knowledge and its Resources” School at the MPIWG and a researcher at the History of Technology Department at TU Berlin. His dissertation project explores the entangled histories of agro-food systems transformations and chemical fertilizer in Egypt during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Omri Polatsek ist Doktorand an der Internationalen Max-Planck-Forschungsschule am MPIWG sowie wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Fachgebiet Technikgeschichte an der TU Berlin. In seiner Dissertation untersucht er den Wandel der Agrar- und Ernährungssysteme im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, insbesondere im Hinblick auf chemische Düngemittel in Ägypten und im Nahen Osten.

Figures

Figure 1:  Jumhuriyyat Misr 1955, p. 1.

Figure 2: Jumhuriyyat Misr 1955, p. 220.

Figure 3:  Jumhuriyyat Misr 1955, p. 289.

Figure 4: Compiled from “Chemical Fertilizer Imports,” al-Muqtataf, May 1, 1929; “Total Imports of Nitrogenous Fertilizers in Calendar Years,” fine number 83/222.4, Nitrate of Chile Corporation Archive (NCC Archive), Museum of Rural English Life, Reading.

Bibliography

Jumhuriyyat Misr. Al-Majlis al-Da’im li-Tanmiyyat al-Intaj al-Qawmi, (al-Qahirah,  1955) [Republic of Egypt, The Permanent Council for the Development of National Production, (Cairo: 1955)].


OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Redaktion (18. Mai 2026). Rethinking the Historical Connections between Chemical Fertilizer and Food in mid-century Egypt. TGTUBlog. Abgerufen am 16. Juni 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/16859


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