Egypt to squeeze growth out of desert

By Heba Saleh in Cairo
Published: July 27 2008 22:57

For about six weeks from mid-May every year, grapes from the Shorouk farm in the Egyptian desert fill a gap on the shelves of European supermarkets waiting for southern European growers to begin sending grapes their way.
Shorouk is one of many modern farms in the re-claimed lands of the West Delta desert region driving a boom in Egyptian agricultural exports that reached $1.5bn (€955m, £750m) in 2007, up some 55 per cent over the previous year.
Egypt's grapes find space on European shelves

Behind the boom is the country’s cheap labour, proximity to Europe and its ability to grow high-value crops such as grapes, citrus fruit, vegetables and ornamental plants.
But for the desert farmers of Egypt the main challenge remains how to maximise the return on their water usage.
“The game here is how to get the maximum yield with the best quality . . . using the minimum amount of water,” Adel El Ghandour, one of the Shorouk farm’s owners, says.
At the moment the 500,000 cultivated acres in the West Delta are watered from an aquifer that is quickly becoming depleted.
A World Bank-funded project to supply piped water from the Nile is under way. But before it can be implemented Egypt had to obtain the agreement of the other nine Nile basin states.
Egypt’s share of the river is fixed by international agreements and Egyptian authorities are increasingly aware of the importance of using water judiciously if the needs of their expanding population are to continue to be met.
In the West Delta the farmers use modern methods such as drip irrigation which delivers exactly the right amount of water to each plant. Very little is lost.
But it is a very different picture in the ancient lands of the Delta and the Nile Valley.
Here the soil is fertile and the farmers use the age-old method of flood irrigation. It means water is used to cover the entire surface of the land to be irrigated. Almost half of it is wasted.
Experts say it is ironic that an acre in the old lands uses three times as much water as one in the reclaimed desert farms.
Another problem is the choice of crops. Rice and sugar cane, for instance, consume enormous amounts of water, but they are grown extensively.
There is consensus that agriculture in the old lands can be made more water-efficient but that conditions there cannot replicate those in the reclaimed desert farms.
Land holdings in the old areas are tiny and the farmers do not have the ability to keep abreast of international markets such as those of the West Delta.
In addition, small farmers are often too poor to make the necessary investments in modern irrigation systems.
Laws passed after the 1952 revolution broke up the big feudal estates into small holdings which were further divided up as the land was passed down through generations of children and grandchildren.
But the Egyptian government says it plans to embark on a project to overhaul irrigation in some 5m acres in the Delta in order to reduce lost water.
“I think with the prices of crops today and with the level of income from agricultural products where it is, this project is very feasible,” Rachid Mohamed Rachid, the minister of trade and industry, says.
“If we can economise on water usage this can give us the chance to increase our agricultural land by 2m-3m acres through desert reclamation.” Food security remains an important plank of the Egyptian government’s policy.
Crops that do not provide the maximum return on water are still grown because it is not certain they can be bought on the world market.
Egypt grows half the wheat it consumes, but it is still the world’s largest importer of the cereal.
With the recent increases in food prices internationally, many countries have slapped export bans on strategic crops such as wheat and rice to ensure that there are affordable supplies for local populations.
There is now a ban on the export of Egyptian rice.
“Food security is coming back as a main issue of concern of many countries because the ability to flow goods across borders is not guaranteed,” Mr Rachid says.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008