How Egypt’s jasmine village became global flower producer
Residents of the Egyptian village of Shubra Beloula are kept busy by the laborious work of collecting jasmine flowers for export around the world.
The Egyptian village of Shubra Beloula in Gharbia governorate, north of Cairo, is known as the “Jasmine village.” Most of its 50,000 residents work in cultivating jasmine and extracting its oil, with which fragrances are made and exported to European and many other countries around the world.
Hussein al-Fakhry, the owner of the leading jasmine extraction factory in Egypt and head of the executive committee of the International Federation of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy Trade, told Al-Monitor, “We now produce over 2,500 tons of blossoms per season, which represents about 60% of the global production. The village's daily production of jasmine [during the 9-month season] is 10 tons. The harvest is then delivered to a cooperative that buys one ton of jasmine for about 12,000 Egyptian pounds [$762]. Two to three kilograms of jasmine paste is extracted from each ton, a kilo of which is exported for $15,000.”
