Helmy Abouleish

True cost accounting, London, UK 6th December, 2013

Farming in the Desert

Transforming the Desert – 36 Years of SEKEMThe first SEKEM building in 1979 The same building in 2009

A SEKEM field in 1979 The same field in 2009

Ecological agriculture in Egypt– Compost

- Aiming for the impossible..Opening ceremony of the Sinai Project 2008 The land before…

…and changing our world.

… and after 18 months.

Integrative value chain & Associations

SEKEM – a Learning, Living Community• About 2,000 employees in SEKEM Group and Foundation • Safe workplaces, respect for the dignity of every employee • Women empowerment and religious tolerance

SEKEM – Developing Human Potential

• Kindergarten and school • Medical centre • Vocational training • Community school • Children with special needs

• Adult education • Heliopolis Academy for

research and training • Heliopolis University for

Sustainable Development

EMERGE 2013, Oxford, UK, 3 November 2013 - Helmy Abouleish

Holistic approach to Sustainable Development The Sustainable Development Flower

Outlines of the comparative study

• A study to compare the full cost of production (cost/ton) development of 7 crops grown in Egypt under 2 different scenarios: “Business as Usual” (BAU) and sustainable farming practices

• For all 7 crops (corn, cotton, potatoes, rice, sugar beat, sugar cane, wheat) the full cost of production was calculated for the period of 10 years

Approach and assumptions

• For simplicity reasons only “hard externalities” such as energy, fertilizer price developments as well as carbon and water footprint were considered.

• Based on activity data from the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MARL) of the years 2000-2010

• Based on reference data from the FAO, IEA, World bank.

• Every year 1.25-1.8% more synthetic fertilizer needs to be applied in BAU systems to maintain same yield “Fertilizer Efficiency”

• Average annual carbon sequestration in sustainable systems is 1 ton of carbon per hectar

• Carbon tax of 12.5 US$/tCO2e as per New Zealand taxation system and 0.1 US Cent for 1 m3 of water as per price suggested by Booz Allen Hamilton consultant.

Results

Consolidated cost of production internalizing the impact of energy, fertilizer & water price development as well as a carbon tax . Other costs such as pest and disease control, labour, land rent, seeds were included as well.

Thank you very much for your attention!

www.sekem.com

Helmy Abouleish SEKEM Group

P.O. Box 2834 El Horreya Cairo, Egypt

helmy.abouleish@sekem.com

Ecological agriculture in Egypt – Cotton• 1991: SEKEM convinces the Egyptian government about the benefits

of biodynamic cotton after its success to harvest first biodynamic cotton crop.

• As a result, the application of pesticides in Egypt was reduced by over 90%.(Decreased from 35000 tonnes per year to 3000 tonnes only)

Transforming the DesertThe first SEKEM building in 1979 The same building in 2013

• 36 years sustainable agriculture at SEKEM – 20,000 acres (including suppliers) – 2,000 jobs – 400 small-holder farmers – Over 1 million tons CO2e sequestrated – 20-40% water savings – Continuous yield increase – Continuous decrease of inputs