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Egypt's Al-Sisi instructs government to speed up New Delta project completion Project aims to achieve food security for Egypt's citizens, says Agriculture Minister
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has ordered the government to speed up the implementation of the new national project for integrated agricultural development, "New Delta", according to Elsayed Elkosayer, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. Elkosayer said that the project aims to reclaim and cultivate more than one million feddan. The minister announced that this initiative comes as part of efforts made by the Egyptian government in implementing a sustainable development strategy and Egypt's Vision 2030. He added that the project aims mainly to achieve food security and face the requirements in terms of food commodities of the country's continuous population increase, and reducing dependence on importing strategic food commodities. "The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak showed the utmost importance for agricultural sector, which prompts countries to redraw their plans in field of agriculture," Elkosayer noted, "This mega national project is distinguished by its genius location because it is near the ancient delta and near the road and port network, as well as, connects a number of governorates." He added that the project will contribute to redistributing the population and attracting a large number of citizens to alleviate the overpopulation in the Nile Valley and Delta. Besides this, it will also provide a lot of job opportunities in all aspects of activities, whether agricultural, animal-related activities, or agricultural industrialisation, as well as, being linked to the establishment of integrated residential communities. Elkosayer said that the presidential initiative was to exert the utmost care and seek the assistance of experts from Egyptian universities to conduct the inventory, classification, and evaluation of lands south of the Dabaa axis. The ultimate goal is to provide audited results, as an inventory of 688,000 feddans was carried out west of the Future of Egypt project, which spans over 500,0000 feddans. This is located around the Dabaa axis, which has already commenced implementation by exploiting the available groundwater in the region, where 200,000 feddans have been cultivated. It is expected to reach 350,000 feddans by the beginning of 2022. In addition to this, there are other projects that are being implemented in other areas in North and Central Sinai, Toshka, the New Valley and the Egyptian countryside. These may reach the total areas that are added to the agricultural plot within two years, to more than 2 million feddans. Within only three months, between January and March 2021, the specialised work teams pressured the timetable and intensified efforts to implement three phases of field studies. These efforts also included laboratory analyses, data collection, preparation of land suitability maps for agriculture and preparation of the final report, he disclosed. A study was conducted on an area of 688,000 feddans that more than 90% of the area is suitable for agriculture, and there is a possibility for future expansion in the area. This would take place according to the availability of additional water sources and by studying climate and results of detailed studies of the lands. These would show that the land is suitable for the cultivation of strategic crops, foremost of which are wheat, yellow corn, legumes, vegetable crops and various types of fruits.
