How can chia, quinoa and amaranth cut Egypt’s cooking-oil imports?

Oil import bill leaves little room for error
Egypt produces barely 2 percent of the edible oils its 110 million people consume; the rest is bought on the world market, leaving subsidy budgets at the mercy of palm-oil price spikes and shipping shocks.​

Researchers test three unconventional crops
A peer-reviewed study in the journal Discover Food set out to see whether chia, amaranth and quinoa—seeds more often linked to smoothie bowls than frying pans—could thrive in local soils and supply press-grade oil. Field trials ran for two seasons in Sharqeya, Giza, Minya and Aswan, a north-to-south transect chosen for its mix of clay, loam and desert sands.​

Sharqeya stands out in field trials
Sharqeya’s alluvial soils turned out to be the star performer. Chia plants there grew 7.6 percent taller and delivered 8.6 percent more seed than in the other governorates; amaranth and quinoa posted similar yield bumps.​ Giza, by contrast, produced chia with the richest fixed-oil content—just under 30 percent of each tiny seed, a figure competitive with rapeseed and sunflower.​

Beyond yield: nutrition and climate edge
All three candidates are drought-tolerant “ancient grains” that cope with saline water and hot summers—exactly the stresses forecast for the Nile Valley after 2050. Amaranth brings complete proteins; quinoa and chia deliver omega-3 fatty acids prized by health-food markets.​ That nutrient profile could open premium channels at home and abroad while reducing the hard-currency drain on bulk vegetable oils.

From pilot plots to market shelves
Scaling up, however, means more than handing out seed packets. Farmers will need training on planting density and combine settings for the tiny grains; crushers must install presses that handle small seed sizes without overheating delicate lipids. Processors told Daily News Egypt they would back contracts if the state guarantees a minimum-support price during the first three seasons.​

Policy and private sector must close the gap
The authors urge the Agriculture Ministry to slot the trio into its crop-rotation guidelines and the Food Industry Holding Company to test-market blended oils. If that coordination materialises, Egypt could replace an estimated 5 percent of annual imports with domestically pressed chia-amaranth-quinoa blends by 2030—an incremental but strategically meaningful step toward food sovereignty.