Correlation is not causation, but many nations focus their investments on agriculture due to idealizing food self-sufficiency. That can come at the expense of other investments that could prove more valuable.  Egypt has made a concentrated effort to improve its food self-sufficiency but had to reduce its target for 2025 from 65 percent locally grown wheat to meeting 51 percent of requirements domestically. The country has made progress, largely via expanded land use, irrigation, and improved genetics. But it pays domestic farmers substantially more for their wheat than it would cost to import the grain. At the same time, the country’s consumption subsidies for bread and flour drives wheat demand ever higher. On its face, Egypt has impr...