Egypt encouraging graduates to turn the desert green
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Egypt has, for the last two decades, been encouraging university graduates to leave the city and grow food on dry, uncultivated land.
It all began, 20 years ago, in Egypt’s capital, Cairo.
A national newspaper announced that the government was trying to solve the unemployment problem for young graduates – and there were several options. One was to take out a government loan and start a business, another was to get a car. The third option… to buy some cheap farmland that you repaid over 30 years.
The country is aiming to reclaim about 150,000 acres of land each year.
Throughout the desert, east and west of Cairo, dozens of villages are made up of some 40,000 graduates who’ve taken the chance to come to farm.
Despite some stumbles, they’ve reclaimed about a million acres of land, and passed on newfound technical skills to the locals who already eked a living in this harsh terrain. With help from the government and abroad, they’ve started schools, clinics and water reclamation plants.
Despite their successes, the government has now decided not to renew its experiment in helping willing graduates back to the land, unless they have agriculture degrees and are willing to join forces with larger investors.
As for millions of other graduates across the world, who can’t yet find decent work in the global economy, unless other countries follow Egypt’s example, they may have to wait for their own fairytale to begin.
Excerpted from an article by Steve Bradshaw for BBC News
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