October 09, 2007	Tuesday	Ramazan 26, 1428

CAIRO: It looks like a mirage but the lush fields of cauliflower, apricot trees and melon growing among a vast stretch of sand north of Cairo’s pyramids is all too real — proof of Egypt’s determination to turn its deserts green.

While climate change and land over-use help many deserts across the world advance, Egypt is slowly greening the sand that covers almost all of its territory as it seeks to create more space for its growing population.

Tarek el-Kowmey, 45, points proudly to the banana trees he grows on what were once Sahara sands near the Desert Development Centre, north of Cairo, where scientists experiment with high-tech techniques to make Egypt’s desert bloom.

“All of this used to be just sand,” he said. “Now we can grow anything.”

With only five per cent of the country habitable, almost all of Egypt’s 74 million people live along the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea. Already crowded living conditions — Cairo is one of the most densely populated cities on earth — will likely get worse as Egypt’s population is expected to double by 2050.

So the government is keen to encourage people to move to the desert by pressing ahead with an estimated $70 billion plan to reclaim 3.4 million acres of desert over the next 10 years.

Among the incentives is cheap desert land to college graduates.

But to make these areas habitable and capable of cultivation, the government will need to tap into scarce water resources of the Nile River as rainfall is almost non-existent in Egypt.

The plan has raised controversy among some conservationists who say turning the desert green is neither practical nor sustainable and might ultimately backfire.

Anders Jagerskog, director of the Stockholm International Water Institute in Sweden, questions the wisdom of using precious water resources to grow in desert areas unsuited to cultivation and where water will evaporate quickly under the scorching sun.“A desert is not the best place to grow food,” he said.

The scope of the reclamations could also add to regional tension over Nile water sharing arrangements as in order to green its desert Egypt might need to take more than its share of Nile water determined by international treaties.

Overcrowding is straining infrastructure in the cities and the government is worried that opposition groups might capitalise on discontent.

Some critics say that Egypt should look at desert tourism rather than agriculture, which might not be sustainable or particularly profitable and could destroy fragile wildlife habitats that might otherwise be a draw-card for tourists.—Reuters