Food, whether bountiful or absent, has shaped Egyptian history since antiquity.

For all the hopes of improved economic opportunities since the 1970s, more than 50% of the country lives on less than $2 a day, which means that food costs take up a tremendous portion of the average Egyptian’s meager salaries.

Egypt has put in place a rationing system, which puts subsidies on bread, rice, and other foodstuffs. Yet, the Egyptian government may have to reduce those subsidies since it lacks the funds to pay for them. Doing so would put it right in the same crosshairs that led to the ouster of Mubarak - the costs of food rising faster than people could afford.

That could be the crux of the matter in the current economic and political climate, where every day life continues to be a struggle for nearly half the population who lives on less than $2 per day. Subsidies on basic food – most notable bread, but also rice, sugar, cooking oil and fuel – are what separates many Egyptians from chronic hunger. Long forgotten, the skyrocketing price of food helped spark the mass protests that brought down president Husni Mubarak.

But the post-Mubarak government is facing the most severe economic downturn in the country’s recent history — and one of the victims of cuts could be the bread subsidies that have been in place for decades. The county’s social solidarity minister, Gouda Abdel Khalek, said at a food security seminar this month that the current system was ‘unsustainable’ and needed drastic change.

‘We need a radical shift in the way we deal with our bread subsidy system,’ said Khaleq, whose ministry is in charge of the country’s wheat purchases and administers its extensive program of subsidized foods. Although he didn’t specify exactly what those reforms would be, Khalek told the seminar.

But cutting subsidies is easier said than done. In 1977, late President Anwar Sadat attempted to raise the price of bread. He was rebuked by the population, who took to the streets en masse, forcing the government to acquiesce. Only three years ago, when Egypt faced bread shortages, riots broke out across the country, leaving at least one person dead in the violence that ensued.

The subsidies have been used as a substitute for civil rights by the autocrats throughout the region, but with their end, so too might end the subsidies.

Encouraging more food production domestically would help, but a burgeoning population would draw even more heavily on the Nile River, which is being heavily drawn upon upriver, particularly as Sudan and others look to the river for their own water projects. Self-sufficiency requires far more effort to reduce water consumption for crops while maintaining yields. Raising the economic standard of living is also critical as it would lessen the need for the subsidies in the first place. That means eliminating quite a bit of the corruption and limitations on economic advancement and a freeing up of the political and economic spheres.