Heat Wave Shrivels Mango Crop for Egypt’s Farmers

A farmer arranges mangoes after the yield dropped due to fungus linked to global warming, in Ismailia, Egypt, July 26, 2021. (Reuters)
A farmer arranges mangoes after the yield dropped due to fungus linked to global warming, in Ismailia, Egypt, July 26, 2021. (Reuters)
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Heat Wave Shrivels Mango Crop for Egypt’s Farmers

A farmer arranges mangoes after the yield dropped due to fungus linked to global warming, in Ismailia, Egypt, July 26, 2021. (Reuters)
A farmer arranges mangoes after the yield dropped due to fungus linked to global warming, in Ismailia, Egypt, July 26, 2021. (Reuters)

The mango groves of Egypt’s Ismailia province, normally humming with harvesting activity in July, have been quiet this summer following an unexpected heat wave that has ruined much of the crop and hurt farmers’ livelihoods.

Farmer Adel Dahshan, wearing a white galabeya stained with mango juice, said his farmed areas have yielded just a tiny fraction of their normal bounty.

A sudden heat wave swept the province of Ismailia, which borders the Suez Canal, in early winter and then again in late March, and those hot days and cool nights have disrupted the fruit’s development.

“The weather at night isn’t warm, it’s cold… that affects the growth of the flowers, of the fruit,” said Dahshan, 49. Ayman Abou Hadid, an environment and agriculture professor at Ain Shams University said the irregular temperatures were caused by climate change.

Those fluctuations and increased humidity levels, along with a deadly crop disease that thrives in warmth, have slashed mango production by 50%-80%, according to Hadid, a former agricultural minister.

Standing below a nearly barren mango tree, farmer Yasser Dahshan holds a branch, its once waxy, green leaves consumed by a soot-like growth which blocks the sunlight the fruit needs.

Dahshan, whose orchards have been hit particularly hard by the pest-induced disease, said many Ismailia residents who grow mangoes for a living have lost work as related farming activity has been subdued.

“You see, there is no mango,” he says. “If the crop was good, you’d find people hard at work, picking the mangoes, gathering them, loading them into cars.”

Mangoes are a beloved part of summer in Egypt, sunset-colored varieties normally abundant in fruit stalls and juice shops through the streets of the capital Cairo. This year’s low yield has driven prices up, hurting sellers and customers.

Eid Abou Ali, who owns a roadside fruit stand in Ismailia, said it would take him a week to sell as many mangoes as he would have sold in two or three days a year ago.

“A kilo that once went for 20 pounds now goes for 30 or 35, and people are unwilling to pay,” he said.



Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.

On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.

Nearly two years on from Hamas's unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for, said AFP.

Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.

Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in "Bibi" the man of the moment.

– 'Reshape the Middle East' –

For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran -- a fear shared by most Israelis.

Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu's argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws "a lot of public support" and that the prime minister has been "greatly strengthened".

Even the opposition has rallied behind him.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.

A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.

The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to "reshape the Middle East."

During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defenses.

Israel's then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted "the balance of power" and had "weakened" Iran.

"In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran)," said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

Since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.

"Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself -- not the one who reacts -- and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model," Charbit said.

"But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers."

– Silencing critics –

For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a "necessary war," according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialized in Israel at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.

"Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones," she added.

"It's very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad."

In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's military had reached unprecedented levels.

After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.

"There's more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran," explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing "the dirty work... for all of us."

The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.

But for Perelman, "Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has."