President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi this week inaugurated the first phase of the Berket Ghalioun fish farm project. The Middle East's largest fish farm is located 134km north of Cairo, in Kafr Al-Sheikh governorate which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. When finished it will cover 12,000 feddans, of which Al-Sisi inaugurated the first 4,000. A cooperative venture between China's Evergreen Co and the Armed Forces National Company for Fish Resources, the completed farm will cost LE4 billion. “This project will produce 25,000 tons [of fish]. Other phases are being implemented and they will all be integrated,” Al-Sisi said during the inauguration. Berket Ghalioun will eventually comprise 1359 fish basins for freshwater and saltwater fish and shrimp farming. The adjacent industrial zone, covering 55 feddans, includes a fish feed factory with a capacity of 120,000 tons annually, a shrimp feed plant with a 60,000 ton capacity, refrigeration facilties and packaging plants capable of processing 100 tons of fish daily. It includes a development and training centre, a central laboratory and housing units for workers are located nearby. The finished Berket Ghalioun is expected to produce 5 million kilos of fish and shrimps a year. Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Animal Resources and Fisheries Mona Mehrez told DMC channel in a telephone interview that Berket Ghalioun will eventually, at completion, cover around 30 per cent of the country's fish consumption. “The Armed Forces successfully built the first phase of the project in a year and a half. The final project will boost Kafr Al-Sheikh's fish production to cover 70 per cent of Egypt's total domestic consumption, instead of the current 40 per cent,” Kafr Al-Sheikh Governor Major-General Al-Sayed Nasr told the press. Egypt's produces 1.6 million tons of fish annually, 75 per cent from fish farms and the remaining 25 per cent from regular Nile and sea fishing, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. In addition, Egypt imports 236,000 tons of fish annually. Mahmoud Fouad, head of the Fish Resources' Research Department in Kafr Al-Sheikh, told Al-Ahram Weekly the integrated fish farming project will enhance Egypt's food security. “The project is an integral fish farming city as it has all the needed infrastructure to farm, feed and produce fish products for the local consumption and later for exporting,” Fouad said. Berket Ghalioun has three pumping stations. One supplies basins with saltwater from 12 pumps at a maximum rate of 72,000 cubic metres an hour. The second provides 30,000 cubic metres of freshwater an hour from five pumps while the third comprises 15 drainage pumps with a capacity of 90,000 cubic metres. Local workers will be offered training programmes to prepare them for jobs at the project's various plants. Berket Ghalioun is located in an area that has a history of producing illegal migrants, says Nasr. The job opportunities the project provides will significantly reduce the number of young men who endanger their lives seeking to reach Europe illegally by sea. “The project will generate 10,000 new jobs directly, and up to 30,000 indirectly,” says Nasr. After inaugurating the completed fish basins Al-Sisi laid the foundation stone of the second phase of the fish farming project which will cover 3500 feddans. “Last year along the Suez Canal 1,000 fish farming basins were inaugurated and a further 4,000 basins will be launched in December. The giant fish farm east of Port Said which covers 19,000 feddans is also nearing completion,” said Al-Sisi. He promised that all current fish farming projects will be completed by June 2018. The completed projects will take time before they impact on the retail price of fish. “The production cycles of projects like Berket Ghalioun and the Canal basins are 12 months or thereabouts, depending on the type of fish being farmed,” explains Fouad. “It will therefore take time for increased production to enter the market and lead to gradually reduced prices.”
