Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities Ministry will provide young graduates with 3500 acres in Ismailia, amid the government plans to reclaim one million acres of undeveloped land to be used for agriculture, according to press statements on Saturday. Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouli, announced the start of procedures to award lands to young investors and university graduates, which takes part of a larger scheme to reclaim a total of four million acres. The scheme comes in response for the decline of suitable lands for agriculture in the Nile Valley and Delta. "The move to increase the amount of agricultural land is a good one since the rate of land reclamation had declined to only 10,000 to 15,000 acres annually," Ibrahim Abdel-Motaleb, former chairman of the Agricultural Economic Research Institute told Al-Ahram newspaper. However, Abdel-Motalab said that the government is facing challenges, including shortage of water resources and a lack of funds. He suggested the government should use more developed methods of irrigation rather than Nile water, to overcome the water scarcity. Meanwhile, Hossam Al-Moghazi, minister of irrigation and water resources, said last month that the government plans to drill 3,500 wells to be used in irrigation for these areas at a total cost of 7 billion EGP.
