Egypt, the world's biggest wheat importer, has unveiled plans to grow enough of the grain to meet 75% of its needs, despite the limits on agriculture imposed by a primarily desert landscape.

Hussein Soliman, an adviser to Egypt's farm minister, said that Cairo aimed to raise its wheat production from about 55% of national needs through greater plantings and higher yields.

"The government plan is... to reach self-sufficiency of around 75% in the next 10 years," Mr Soliman told a grains conference.

At current market numbers, the target implies roughly an extra 3m tonnes of home-grown wheat a year, reducing the country's reliance on imports, which Mr Soliman pegged at about 6m tonnes a year. The USDA estimates Egypt's wheat imports at 8.33m tonnes in 2009-10.

With the country's 83-million strong population growing at 1.6% a year, the government's real ambitions for wheat may be even bigger.

Big consumer

Wheat is currently planted on about half of Egypt's 2.5m hectares of agricultural land, which is restricted to areas immediately around the river Nile.

Yet Egyptians are among the most enthusiastic consumers of wheat, eating approaching 200 kilogrammes each per year.

The country will consume 15.9m tonnes of wheat in 2009-10, the USDA believes.

Cairo has aimed at developing horticulture, to produce higher-value farm products for, in particular, the European market.