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http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=8027
June 2008
The Silent Assassin
Skyrocketing food prices are making the attack of desertification on our nation’s farmland even more deadly
By Zeinab Abul Gheit
With food prices rising through the roof across the world and many fingers of blame are pointing to the world’s food producers, arable land is more and more precious every day. In Egypt this land is under attack. Called Arabyaraby, (silent assassination) in Arabic, desertification is stalking the country, killing feddans of soil capable of growing food. It shows no signs of slacking, but that is not stopping Egypt from mounting an attack using international allies and experimental science
Desertification refers to the deterioration of land caused either by drought, high salt levels in the water, unsound drainage or climatic change. It has the power to take productive crop fields and turn them into useless land. The process has been happening for thousands of years, but lately it has been intensified by industrial activity and poor agricultural management.
If desertification continues unabated in Africa, the continent may only be able to feed 25 percent of its population by 2025, according to the United Nations University’s Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. The university’s findings reveal serious social and economic ramifications for Egypt, including unemployment and widesread hunger.
Desertification affects roughly a fifth of the world’s population, causing nearly $42 billion (LE 224 billion) in lost earnings and produce and in prevention costs each year. Egypt is among the countries worst affected by the phenomenon. Only three percent of Egyptian land is agriculturally productive, yet nearly two million feddans in the North Delta alone have already been lost due to rising groundwater levels, unsound drainage practices and encroaching sand dunes.
Dr. Ismail Abdel Galil, head of Egypt’s Desert Research Center (DRC), finds it sad that human actions have contributed so much to desertification. “Can you imagine that we lose two feddans per hour from the best fertile land in the Nile valley because of construction on agricultural land?”
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, there are only 533 square meters of agricultural land per capita in Egypt. To give some comparison, there are 2,235,896 square meters per capita in Texas, USA. In Egypt, the combination of the farm land dwindling and large population growth – expected to hit 123 million by 2029 – will make it even harder for the country to meet its food needs.
An Arid Africa
Desertification is affecting eco-systems around the world, but Africa is being particularly hard hit because of the continent’s abundance of fragile, semi-arid regions. As a result of their economic vulnerability and dependence on agriculture, developing nations are among the worst hurt by desertification and the loss of arable lands.
In 1994, Egypt signed the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which outlines a framework for countries to work together as well as within their borders to slow down desertification and reduce the devastating effects of drought. To date 192, states have signed the convention.
Recently UNCCD has focused on Africa, with food shortages at the top of the agenda. At the sixteenth session of the Committee for Sustainable Development, held May 14-16 this year in New York City, delegates called for an increase in government funding for agriculture and arable land in Africa, an area conference speakers say has been neglected for a dangerous amount of time.
Egypt itself has made gains in restoring degraded agricultural lands by passing laws that ban the use of top soil as raw material for red bricks, restrict the urban development on arable land and regulate irrigation systems. Already, the amount of cultivated land in Egypt has risen from 5 million feddans to 8 million feddans. According to Abdel Galil, it is estimated that 11 million feddans will be productive by 2017. On its website, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation says the target is to reclaim 150,000 feddans per year.
Abdel Galil hopes that desertification can also be reduced through people making changes to their everyday practices, and aims to enhance awareness by educating women and children living in affected rural areas.
Banking on Biodiversity
Science and technology are also being put to work in Egypt to tackle the problem of desertification. In 2004, Egypt set up the National Gene Bank with facilities to preserve and store genetic material from the flora and fauna of the country as a safeguard against the future effects of greater desertification. Investment in people has also been recognized as essential.
At a global level, 2006 was named International Year For Deserts and Desertification (IYDD) to help raise worldwide awareness of the seriousness of the problem. That same year, the DRC organized the first regional training course on gene banks and their role in combating desertification. The event was held in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and Biodiversity International.
The workshop, attended by 17 gene bank curators and researchers on agricultural biodiversity from 11 African states, included a panel discussion and 10 days of training at the Egyptian Desert Gene Bank in El-Arish. Participants were sponsored by the Egyptian government, with international presenters brought in by Biodiversity International, represented by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the United Kingdom’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
“[The event was] organized to acquaint the participants with updated technologies and tools for seed conservation and use; enhancing the use of genetic resources in ex situ and in situ collection for addressing the problems of desertification, erosion and production for improving food security, nutrition and livelihood farmers,” says Abdel Galil. “The participants have greatly benefited from the training course and will be able to combat desertification, which causes the destruction of habitats and the loss of many locally important species on which their communities depend for their livelihood.”
Plants of Hope
Another focus of anti-desertification research are ‘wonder plants’ that may provide natural means to keep Egypt’s farmland productive.
The Moringa tree, planted near the gene bank, holds a lot of hope for those fighting desertification. Sometimes called the ‘Life Tree,’ because of its high vitamin and mineral content, it is native to India, the Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean basin. Researchers have found that 28 grams of its leaves contain as much calcium as four cups of milk, potassium equaling three times that of a banana, and ten times the Vitamin A found in a carrot. It also contains iron and protein, and the oil from the Moringa’s seeds is said to be more beneficial than olive oil.
Its value goes above and beyond nutrition, as some African groups use the tree as a traditional medicine to naturally treat impotence in men. Its ground leaves purify the water, while its leaves and pods help to cure anemia, cancer as well as nerve, brain and cardiac diseases. The Moringa Tree is already being used in other arid parts of Africa to fight malnutrition, since it is able to survive harsh conditions on only 100-300 millimeters of water per day.
During the 2006 workshop in Sinai, Ursula Oswald Spring, a professor at the National University of Mexico, taught the group the benefits of Indian fig leaves, which are also cultivated at the gene bank. Spring taught the group how to make three different meals with the plant leaves, which are often boiled with slices of potato and onion or used in a salad mixed with tomatoes, onions and olive oil.
“The Indian fig tree is a blessing, not only because it combats desertification, but because it is a free, delicious meal which we eat with gusto,” says workshop participant Mahmoud El-Orabi. “We like it because it tastes like okra.”
Eastern Desert Project
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