SF Chronicle: Egypt working to reclaim the desert
Egypt working to reclaim the desert
Remote areas grow crops, but some say they are ignored
Liam Stack, Chronicle Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Abu Minqar, Egypt -- This remote Sahara oasis on the edge of the Great Sand Sea is far from the noise, pollution and crowded throngs of the fertile Nile Valley. In fact, its 4,000 residents call it "the farthest place from Egypt."
Abu Minqar, 404 miles southwest of Cairo, had previously been a bleak moonscape before the government began drilling for water in 1987 in the vast Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. Now, this area is a green stretch of wheat fields and lemon trees.
"Here, we are free," said longtime resident Magdy Mubaraz Ibrahim. "We can plant whatever we want and do whatever we want."
Reclaiming Egypt's desert lands, which cover about 96 percent of the nation's territory, has been a major government objective for more than 50 years.
Successive presidents have said reclamation is a key component in countering not only urban crowding - the population grows by 1.5 million annually - but high unemployment. The official unemployment rate is 10 percent, but many believe it is twice that amount. Currently, 98 percent of Egypt's 78 million inhabitants live in the densely populated Nile River Valley or along the Mediterranean Sea.
But in the past five decades, development experts estimate that as many as 2 million people have moved to reclaimed lands in the Sinai and Sahara deserts. Such desert plots now account for almost 25 percent of Egypt's 8 million acres under cultivation, these same experts say.
President Hosni Mubarak has allocated an estimated $70 billion to reclaim some 27 million acres by 2017. Under his plan, the government offers land to peasants, small-business investors and even university graduates who can't find a decent-paying job in the cities.
At Abu Minqar, the state provides each family with a house and 2 1/2 to 6 acres, for which they pay $35 to $52 annually for as many as 30 years. The oasis consists of two-room cement homes, roads and gravel paths, electricity lines and a rough network of canals that irrigate area crops.
But in spite of its success in lessening pressure on urban areas, state reclamation projects have experienced the same difficulties associated with cities and towns across Egypt, observers say.
The reclamation project "is a way to push the country's problems into the desert," said Jessica Pouchet, a researcher at the American University's Desert Development Center in Cairo.
Abu Minqar residents say the mayor does little, the state-run farmer's cooperative store is poorly stocked and the most significant state presence - the State Agricultural Bank - hordes fertilizer to create a black market. The bankers then sell it to outside interests who sell it back to villagers for two to three times the normal price.
"There is no one to complain to about our problems," said Ali Yassin Marai, a bean and wheat farmer.
Moreover, water experts fear the repercussions once the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, which Egypt shares with Sudan, Libya and Chad, goes dry.
"The real problem is uncertainty," said Rick Tutwiler, director of the Desert Development Center, who has spent several years working on desert irrigation projects in Egypt. "No one knows how much water is even in the aquifer, let alone how fast it is being drained."
Residents also say the state has failed to build cement-lined canals, causing irrigation water to be absorbed by canal walls or evaporated under the desert sun. Electricity is available only a few hours a night, and no adequate health clinics or secondary schools exist. To treat a major illness or attend high school, villagers must travel hundreds of miles on rocky desert roads.
Marai, who moved to Abu Minqar with his family from the Cairo suburb of Giza as a child in 1987, says the central government has forgotten its Sahara transplants.
"Abu Minqar is far from the eyes of the government," he said. "They don't pay attention to us."
Yehia Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Local Administration, which oversees in the delivery of services to desert towns and villages, says the government is well aware of the problems in Abu Minqar and other reclaimed desert areas.
"The ministry has 840 million Egyptian pounds ($146 million) for development, but it has to be done step-by-step. People have to be patient."
Moreover, the State Agricultural Bank does distribute some fertilizer at low prices and, more importantly, purchases area crops. Without such support, farmers in this remote spot would find it difficult to sell wheat - the area's main cash crop - to distant cities and towns.
But that is little consolation for most residents here, who finally banded together in September to form an independent association that helps them pay for such necessities as heavy machinery to keep the canals clean or medicine to keep their livestock healthy.
"We have a lot of problems here, and if we work together we can solve some of them," said Ibrahim, who now heads the farmer group.
At the Desert Development Center in Cairo, researcher Tina Jaskolski says the farmers' association is a healthy sign that oasis residents plan to make their own future.
"A lot of people are saying 'forget the government, we have to do this by ourselves,' " said Jaskolski, who has spent more than a year working in Abu Minqar.
"These people all moved to make a new life for themselves, and they have kind of a frontier mentality," she added. "I think that the will to make it work is a big part of what does make it work."
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Remote areas grow crops, but some say they are ignored
Liam Stack, Chronicle Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Abu Minqar, Egypt -- This remote Sahara oasis on the edge of the Great Sand Sea is far from the noise, pollution and crowded throngs of the fertile Nile Valley. In fact, its 4,000 residents call it "the farthest place from Egypt."
Abu Minqar, 404 miles southwest of Cairo, had previously been a bleak moonscape before the government began drilling for water in 1987 in the vast Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. Now, this area is a green stretch of wheat fields and lemon trees.
"Here, we are free," said longtime resident Magdy Mubaraz Ibrahim. "We can plant whatever we want and do whatever we want."
Reclaiming Egypt's desert lands, which cover about 96 percent of the nation's territory, has been a major government objective for more than 50 years.
Successive presidents have said reclamation is a key component in countering not only urban crowding - the population grows by 1.5 million annually - but high unemployment. The official unemployment rate is 10 percent, but many believe it is twice that amount. Currently, 98 percent of Egypt's 78 million inhabitants live in the densely populated Nile River Valley or along the Mediterranean Sea.
But in the past five decades, development experts estimate that as many as 2 million people have moved to reclaimed lands in the Sinai and Sahara deserts. Such desert plots now account for almost 25 percent of Egypt's 8 million acres under cultivation, these same experts say.
President Hosni Mubarak has allocated an estimated $70 billion to reclaim some 27 million acres by 2017. Under his plan, the government offers land to peasants, small-business investors and even university graduates who can't find a decent-paying job in the cities.
At Abu Minqar, the state provides each family with a house and 2 1/2 to 6 acres, for which they pay $35 to $52 annually for as many as 30 years. The oasis consists of two-room cement homes, roads and gravel paths, electricity lines and a rough network of canals that irrigate area crops.
But in spite of its success in lessening pressure on urban areas, state reclamation projects have experienced the same difficulties associated with cities and towns across Egypt, observers say.
The reclamation project "is a way to push the country's problems into the desert," said Jessica Pouchet, a researcher at the American University's Desert Development Center in Cairo.
Abu Minqar residents say the mayor does little, the state-run farmer's cooperative store is poorly stocked and the most significant state presence - the State Agricultural Bank - hordes fertilizer to create a black market. The bankers then sell it to outside interests who sell it back to villagers for two to three times the normal price.
"There is no one to complain to about our problems," said Ali Yassin Marai, a bean and wheat farmer.
Moreover, water experts fear the repercussions once the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, which Egypt shares with Sudan, Libya and Chad, goes dry.
"The real problem is uncertainty," said Rick Tutwiler, director of the Desert Development Center, who has spent several years working on desert irrigation projects in Egypt. "No one knows how much water is even in the aquifer, let alone how fast it is being drained."
Residents also say the state has failed to build cement-lined canals, causing irrigation water to be absorbed by canal walls or evaporated under the desert sun. Electricity is available only a few hours a night, and no adequate health clinics or secondary schools exist. To treat a major illness or attend high school, villagers must travel hundreds of miles on rocky desert roads.
Marai, who moved to Abu Minqar with his family from the Cairo suburb of Giza as a child in 1987, says the central government has forgotten its Sahara transplants.
"Abu Minqar is far from the eyes of the government," he said. "They don't pay attention to us."
Yehia Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Local Administration, which oversees in the delivery of services to desert towns and villages, says the government is well aware of the problems in Abu Minqar and other reclaimed desert areas.
"The ministry has 840 million Egyptian pounds ($146 million) for development, but it has to be done step-by-step. People have to be patient."
Moreover, the State Agricultural Bank does distribute some fertilizer at low prices and, more importantly, purchases area crops. Without such support, farmers in this remote spot would find it difficult to sell wheat - the area's main cash crop - to distant cities and towns.
But that is little consolation for most residents here, who finally banded together in September to form an independent association that helps them pay for such necessities as heavy machinery to keep the canals clean or medicine to keep their livestock healthy.
"We have a lot of problems here, and if we work together we can solve some of them," said Ibrahim, who now heads the farmer group.
At the Desert Development Center in Cairo, researcher Tina Jaskolski says the farmers' association is a healthy sign that oasis residents plan to make their own future.
"A lot of people are saying 'forget the government, we have to do this by ourselves,' " said Jaskolski, who has spent more than a year working in Abu Minqar.
"These people all moved to make a new life for themselves, and they have kind of a frontier mentality," she added. "I think that the will to make it work is a big part of what does make it work."
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
posted by Liam at
11:37 PM
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