Egypt's government will offer investors and small farmer around 500,000 feddans, as part of the country's mega project to reclaim one million and half feddans, said Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, on Tuesday. The state-administered Egyptian Rural Development Company will distribute 500,000 feddans among investors and small farmers on Wednesday. Ismail has referred that some of these lands are going to be reclaimed by surface irrigation and groundwater. Surface irrigation is defined as the group of application techniques where water is applied over the soil surface by gravity. Groundwater is the water found underground in spaces in soil, sand, and rock. It moves slowly through geologic formations of soil, sand, and rocks called aquifers. Ismail has said during a press conference held in the Cabinet's headquarters that all the areas would be supplied with facilities for the first part of the project. Ismail has confirmed that the project is a new advantage for Egypt which will provide several job opportunities for youth and develop the Egyptian rural tourism project. Initially, in September 2014, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had announced the intention to reclaim four million feddans of desert lands for agricultural use. However, in recent months, Sisi's administration backtracked from its overly ambitious plans, settling for 1.5 million feddans instead. The starting point for this reclamation reportedly commenced late November 2015 with the reclaiming of desert land in the area of Sahl Baraka, near the town of Farafra. In his televised address from Farafra, Sisi confirmed that the state has planned three phases for this mega-project, with each phase involving the reclamation of 500,000 feddans.
