Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set to inaugurate a desert reclamation project at the end of the year, marking the start of a project that is aimed at expanding Egypt’s farmland by 20%, the government has said.
The North African country aims to reclaim 1.5 million feddans (equivalent to 630,000 hectares). This will raise the total amount of farmland available to 9.5 million feddans (3,990,000 hectares).
“The project is a launching point for getting out of the narrow Nile valley and closing the food gap,” said Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, in a government statement, according to a Reuters report.
“(It is also about) increasing habitable space in accordance with scientific studies. [These are] the main aims.”
Around 90 million Egyptians live on about 7% of the country’s 1 million square kilometres of land mass. Much of the country is made up of desert landscape, which is unable to provide habitable areas for citizens.
The Egyptian government will start the project with 10,000 feddans (4,200 hectares) in the vast spaces of the Western Desert, which borders Libya. It aims to use the reclaimed land to farm crops such as wheat and corn, the agricultural minister said.
Egypt is currently the world’s largest wheat importer, Reuters added in its report.