After shipping 1.3 million tonnes of potatoes halfway through 2025, Egypt is already exploiting weekly exports of rival tuber, the sweet potato.
Just after the August-January marketing season begun, sweet potato shipments topped the weekly agricultural dispatches ending August 10, 2025.
According to Amwal Alghad news, quoting the National Food Safety Authority (NSFA), the tuber led vegetable shipments at 7,000 tonnes.
Following suit were potatoes at 6,000 tonnes, indicating lasting resilience late into its marketing season that ends in October.
This week’s tally comes from consignment data by 1,200 export firms, which shipped 650 different agricultural items totaling 3,470 dispatches.
In the wider span of six months, Egypt exported 6.5 million tonnes in agricultural goods, 0.6 million tonnes above 2024’s. This according to a report by the Minister of Agriculture & Land Reclamation, Alaa Farouk, before August 7, 2025.
Orange-fleshed Tuber Reigns in Europe
All eyes are currently on the sweet potato season, which will run undisputed till January, spot on destination Europe.
Because rivals the United States and South Africa are in the low season, Egypt wills to stop the supply gap.
Besides, the North African country enjoys diverse sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) varieties that include the orange-fleshed Beauregard. This cultivar has in recent years emerged a favorite in emerging markets in Europe.
According to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Egypt ranked third in sweet potato exports to the EU in January-February 2025.
In just those two months, volumes to the EU crossed 35,224 tonnes, overtaking those of the whole year 2020.
Since 2021, however, Cairo has mastered the EU market, with annual volumes quadrupling to 150,000 tonnes by 2024.
The Netherlands has become the single biggest recipient of Cairo’s orange-fleshed tuber, representing 50% of supplies, as of 2022.
Will there be a shining repeat in the coming 2025-26 export season for the sweet potato of Egypt? The statistics below attempt an answer to the query, by turning back through time.
Egypt Sweet Potato Statistics
Although Egypt is not among the top 10 sweet potato-producing countries, it is nevertheless a top 5 exporter. The country came 3rd worldwide in 2023 with exports totaling 101,042 tonnes. Only the Netherlands and the U.S. sold more that year, per the World Bank. Ironically, the Netherlands, a major re-exporter, received 50% or 42,000 tonnes of Egypt’s sweet potato exports in 2022. In the 2023 context, Egypt upped its game by emerging a major international supplier, with export values hitting $181.8 million. The European Union (EU) market, especially, accelerated export volumes for Egypt from just 35,224 tonnes (2020) to 149,551 tonnes by 2024. These exports could be better if the production did not fluctuate so much, per the data sections below:
How has Egypt’s sweet potato production performed in the 2020-23 period?
According to the FAOSTAT, Egypt saw rapid variations in production between 2020 and 2023. The table below illustrates:
| Year | Production [tonnes] |
| 2023 | 423,423 |
| 2022 | 318,624 |
| 2021 | 491,182 |
| 2020 | 531,285 |
Does Egypt’s sweet potato acreage fluctuate annually?
There have been volatile fluctuations in the sweet potato cultivated area in Egypt, per the FAOSTAT.
| Year | Cultivated Area [Ha] |
| 2023 | 12,427 |
| 2022 | 9,234 |
| 2021 | 13,943 |
| 2020 | 19,210 |