Maximizing Nile water efficiency – a major challenge
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Modern farms in the reclaimed lands of the West Delta desert region are driving the boom in Egyptian agricultural exports that reached $1.5 billion in 2007, up some 55 per cent over the previous year. Behind the boom is the country’s cheap labor, proximity to Europe and its ability to grow high-value crops such as grapes, citrus fruit, vegetables and ornamental plants.
But for the desert farmers of Egypt, the main challenge remains how to maximize the return on their water usage.
At the moment the 500,000 cultivated acres in the West Delta are watered from an aquifer that is quickly becoming depleted. A World Bank-funded project to supply piped water from the Nile is under way. But before it could be implemented Egypt had to obtain the agreement of the other nine Nile basin states. Egypt’s share of the river is fixed by international agreements and Egyptian authorities are increasingly aware of the importance of using water judiciously if the needs of their expanding population are to continue to be met.
In the West Delta, the farmers use modern methods such as drip irrigation, which delivers exactly the right amount of water to each plant. Very little is lost. But it is a very different picture in the ancient lands of the Delta and the Nile Valley. Here the soil is fertile and the farmers use the age-old method of flood irrigation. Small farmers are often too poor to make the necessary investments in modern irrigation systems. It means water covers the entire surface of the land to be irrigated. Almost half is wasted.
Experts say it is ironic that an acre in the old lands uses three times as much water as one in the reclaimed desert farms. Crops such as rice and sugar cane, that do not provide the maximum return on water are still grown because it is not certain they can be bought on the world market. Egypt grows half the wheat it consumes but it is still the world’s largest importer of the cereal. With the recent increases in food prices internationally, many countries have slapped export bans on strategic crops such as wheat and rice to ensure that there are affordable supplies for their local -populations. There is now a ban on the export of Egyptian rice.
The Egyptian government plans to embark on a project to overhaul irrigation in some five million acres in the Delta in order to reduce lost water.
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