Agriculture Ministry begins studies for 750,000 feddan reclamation project

The Ministry of Agriculture announced Tuesday that it has begun technical studies for a project that aims to cultivate 750,000 feddans of desert land in Egypt’s southwest.

The project is based on a proposal by scientist Farouk al-Baz.

Baz had a long, high-profile career with US space agency NASA, but in Egypt he is best known for his vision of a “development corridor” parallel to the Nile Valley. In a plan first laid out in the 1980s, Baz envisioned millions of Egyptians moving away from the overcrowded Nile Valley to new cities and reclaimed desert land west of the Nile.

The proposal was derided as grandiose and unrealistic by engineers and development experts, and never implemented by the Egyptian government, who balked at its estimated US$24 billion price tag. 

Although the development project never got off the ground, Baz maintained a position of influence with successive governments, advising both Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak.

In September 2014, President Abdel-Fattah al Sisi named Baz as part of a council of scientific advisors, and Sisi and other high officials have since held meetings with the scientist to discuss potential development efforts.

The project currently under discussion is to be based west of Kom Ombo and Wadi Gellaba in Aswan in Upper Egypt. 

The technical studies launched by the ministry will attempt to verify Baz’s theory that the Nubian Aquifer, which lies below the Western desert and would be the source of groundwater for land reclamation, is able to support this level of extraction.

The Ministry added that this project will be prepared in parallel with a ministerial project to reclaim one million feddans of desert land.