Dr. Walid Sallam

Dr. Walid Sallam is an agricultural marketing expert with 23 years of experience advising and supporting agribusinesses and farmers in Egypt. He helps them expand their businesses and implement practical solutions to increase productivity, quality, and sales. Sallam has provided expert analysis and evaluations for businesses, international and local organizations, and the government of Egypt on topics ranging from agricultural marketing and finance to operations. For the past eight years, he has led five capacity building and technical assistance agribusiness programs in Egypt that have introduced innovative, low-cost solutions to increase smallholder farmers productivity, improve the livelihood of rural communities, equip recent graduates with job-related skills, empower women, and mitigate the effects of climate change. As Associate Professor in the Department of Agribusiness at Cairo University, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, international trade, agricultural finance, price analysis, and operations research.

Sallam is chief of party (COP) of the Feed the Future Egypt Rural Agribusiness Strengthening Project, a five-year, $36 million program aimed at strengthening the horticulture sector. It helps the sector increase the competitiveness of producers and processors, linking them to more sophisticated high-end markets and helping them meet buyer requirements. He directs a team of 68 in four offices in Upper Egypt and the Delta. He provides overall management, technical guidance, and operational strategy for designing and implementing program activities to meet expected results. In the project’s year three, Sallam led the team as it facilitated $54 million in farm-level sales, created the equivalent of more than 6600 full-time on- and off-farm jobs, and established partnerships with well-known private sector companies such as  PepsiCo International, Giza for Seeds, and agricultural universities and technical schools that are building the next generation’s agricultural workforce.

Before his current post, Sallam was COP of the Advanced Marketing and Agribusiness Logistics (AMAL) project, a USAID-funded activity (2015-2018) that aimed to develop inclusive horticulture value chains in Upper Egypt that integrated smallholder farmers into the high-value export market. As the COP of the Value Chain Training project, he oversaw the strengthening of agricultural technical schools. In this role, he worked with the private sector, exporters, and producer organizations to ensure that curricula were responsive to Egypt’s agricultural markets. As a consultant on the United Nations Salasel Project, Sallam worked with producer organizations to develop marketing plans that would help them access domestic and international market opportunities.

Expertise:

• Agricultural marketing
• Agribusinesss management
• Project management
• Agricultural finance
• Economic analysis

Key Projects:

• Feed the Future Egypt Rural Agribusiness Strengthening Project
• Advanced Marketing and Agribusiness Logistics (AMAL) Project
• Value Chain Training Project
• United Nations Salasel Project

Publications:

• Walid Y. Sallam, “Bumpers and Export Sensitivity Analysis for Egyptian Green Beans” Egyptian Journal for Agricultural Economics, Volume 21, Issue 3, September 2011, pp. 956-973.
• Walid Y. Sallam, “Economic Analysis of the Current Situation for Production, Export and the Competitiveness of Egyptian Green Peas in International Markets” Egyptian Journal for Agricultural Economics, Volume 21, Issue 3, September 2011, pp. 939-955.
• Sayed F. El-Sayed, Walid Y. Sallam, Daniel F. Warnockc and David Hahnd, “’Tenderstem’ Broccoli for Export Markets: An Analysis Study on the Agro-Food Company” International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2010.

Countries Served In:

• Egypt