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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97215/Briefing-Turning-Egypt-apos-s-deserts-into-fields
Briefing: Turning Egypt’s deserts into fields
Political tension in Egypt in the aftermath of the revolution which began nearly two years ago, has hit tourism, led to high food prices, and caused an economic slowdown which is raising food security concerns.
In 2012, Egypt was the world’s largest wheat importer, shipping in 11.5 million tons, and highlighting the gap between official food sustainability goals and reality.
“There is an urgent need to increase wheat productivity,” said Nagui Saeed, head of Egypt’s Wheat Producers’ Association – not just to conserve foreign currency but also to cater for Egypt’s growing population, which has nearly doubled in the last 30 years to 83 million.
Egypt’s long-term food security faces a number of challenges: nearly 99 percent of the population live on about 4 percent of the land (adjacent to the River Nile where most of the fertile land is).
Arable land covers around 3 percent of the country, and is under threat from desertification, urbanization and salination, particularly north of the Aswan High Dam, leading to the loss of an estimated 11,736 hectares of agricultural land every year.
The grand dream has always been to transform little-used desert areas and expand out of the densely-populated Nile valley.
What happened to Mubarak’s Toshka project?
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DESERTIFICATION 