The Ministry of Agriculture recently issued an infograph to inform farmers about the benefits of implementing modern methods of irrigation, as opposed to the flood irrigation methods traditionally used on Egypt’s cultivated land.
The benefits include the more efficient and more equitable distribution of water, the decreased use of fertilisers and pesticides, and hence fewer costs, and the increased productivity and competitiveness of Egyptian agricultural products.
The chart, to be disseminated to farmers by the Agricultural Societies affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, comes on the back of national plans announced by the government in 2019 to use Egypt’s limited water resources more efficiently.
Over 90 per cent of Egypt’s water comes from the Nile, according to a recent statement by Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli.
An important objective of the new water conservation policy is to incrementally apply modern irrigation techniques including drip irrigation and sprinklers to Egypt’s agricultural sector as opposed to using centuries-old flood irrigation. The policy is slated to be completed by 2030.
According to the ministry, the implementation of drip irrigation will help to conserve up to at least 30 per cent of a feddan of land’s water requirements every time it is irrigated. This is much lower than the potential range assessed by the World Bank, however, which says that drip irrigation can reduce water usage by 30 to 70 per cent and raise crop yields by 20 to 90 per cent.
The question of water conservation has become all the more pressing as the challenge of scarcity looms larger within the context of the ongoing dispute over the building of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Egypt has been suffering from an annual water deficit of 30 billion cubic metres since 2012, and the completion of the GERD is predicted to see Egypt’s water supply reduced by 60 billion cubic metres over a 10-year period. This could result in economic losses of over $2 billion annually, according to the Egyptian Water Partnership, an NGO.
The targeting of Egypt’s agricultural sector for the implementation of water conservation policies comes within this context, given its sizeable impact on the economy. Egypt’s agricultural sector accounts for over 11 per cent of the country’s economic activity, in addition to providing 14 per cent of its GDP and 29 per cent of its employment.
The agricultural sector is also one of the prime consumers of the country’s increasingly limited water resources.
The first phase of the modernisation and rehabilitation of the irrigation system is slated to be implemented over an area of one million feddans out of a total of 9.4 million feddans of agricultural land.
Out of Egypt’s 27 governorates, six have been designated for the implementation of the first phase of the project, namely Minya, Beni Sweif, Giza, Qena, Ismailia, Suez, and Sharqiya.
The total amount of land to have started implementing modern irrigation methods such as drip and sprinkler irrigation is 264,000 feddans, according to the Ministry of Irrigation. This is in addition to requests for conversion submitted by farmers cultivating some 71,000 feddans of land, according to a statement by head of the Irrigation Authority Shehta Ibrahim on 4 May.
The Irrigation Authority has announced that facilities are being provided to farmers to encourage them to turn to new methods of irrigation. These include soft loans from the national banks as part of an initiative by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in concert with the Ministry of Finance.
The loan repayment period is 60 months, with a six-month grace period. A LE15,000 loan is offered per feddan to be converted to drip irrigation, and a LE20,000 loan to one converted to sprinklers. Technical assistance is provided by the Ministry of Irrigation. Plans are also underway to extend loans to farmers in additional governorates.
Over the past three months, awareness campaigns have been coordinated with the Agricultural Societies, Ministry of Agriculture local bodies located in all the governorates in charge of land deeds, fertilisers, and monitoring crop-rotation systems.
“In the governorate of Daqahliya, which has not yet been officially slated to receive these loans, some 7,000 feddans of land have already been turned to drip irrigation methods,” Fawzi Al-Hadari, undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture in Daqahliya, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
“While this is not a large number, it is a positive sign, and it is hoped that it will spread further.”
The loans-to-farmers initiative is part of broader water conservation plans known as the New Delta Project that will oversee the treatment and redirection for agriculture of agricultural drainage water in the regions of west Nobariya, Al-Khairi, and Edku in the Nile Delta.
The governorate of Alexandria’s sewage water is also part of this project, and these water resources will be used to irrigate an area of 500,000 feddans located south of Dabaa on the North Coast.
As part of new water conservation policy restrictions, rice cultivation has been implemented since 2018 since rice, grown using traditional flood irrigation, continues to consume a sizeable portion of Egypt’s water quota.
In 2018, parliament voted to reduce the amount of land allocated for rice cultivation by more than half. This has been accompanied by a policy targeting increases in Egypt’s rice imports.
The question of rice cultivation and its restriction underscores the problems facing both farmers and the government within the context of the state’s water conservation objectives.
Rice has been a mainstay for some farmers for more than two decades, but with the gradual demise of Egypt’s crop-rotation system starting in the mid-1970s, the challenge has been to find alternatives that will be as lucrative as water-intensive crops while not exhausting both water and soil.
“Most farmers in our region are not used to these techniques, and there is a belief that they are not suited to our traditional crops, such as rice, or even clover and wheat,” said Metwalli Ezz, head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Balamon Agricultural Society in Daqahliya.
“Those who have already implemented these techniques on their own initiative have mainly been vegetable growers as opposed to those cultivating traditional crops.”
It is not so much the question of water security that will concern farmers the most as the costs and benefits of turning to the new irrigation techniques.
“Farmers in our area have shown interest and have asked questions at the Agricultural Society on how to implement the new irrigation techniques. One concern is how they can be used for the crops traditionally grown here and what a viable alternative for them could be,” said Christine Wasfi, a landowner in Daqahliya.
“What will encourage farmers to turn to these new irrigation methods is not only their low cost, but also how they will be able to market their crops. This is the bottom line,” she added.
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