Globalization of the Siwan food economy certainly began some time ago, but it appears that the homogenization of Siwan horticulture with that of the rest of the Mediterranean has lagged far behind that of other desert oases. Indeed, when Vavilov visited the French horticulturist Louis Trabut in Algiers in the summer of 1926, Trabut had already introduced economic plants to Algerian oases from nearly every other tropical and arid subtropical country in the world. Vavilov was disheartened:
“The first impression is that there is very little of the real Africa left there. All around and wherever you look in Algeria, there is an exclusively international flora: beautiful Peruvian philodendron with split leaves; enormous thickets of Australian eucalyptus; acacias and casuarinas; citrus trees introduced from southeastern Asia; Mexican cacti and agaves planted as fences along the shores …”
Today, along the Egyptian shores of the Mediterranean from Alexandria all the way to Marsa Matruh some three hundred kilometers to the west, this same globalization of the cultivated flora is proceeding at a blinding pace, as tens of thousands of shorefront condominiums are being built for wealthy European and Saudi vacationers. Except for ancient heirloom varieties of figs, which have thousands of years of tenure there, most of the food and ornamental crops along the North African coast could be found along each arid subtropical coastline anywhere in the world. Most require more fresh water than the desert has to offer. In little time, the cosmopolitan weeds of the horticultural world will swarm in on Siwa as well, attempting to rob it of its distinctiveness. It is too early to tell whether the Berber and Bedouin values still strong in Siwa will be enough to absorb the insults without transforming the Pearl of the Desert into something altogether different.
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