140K feddans cultivated within Egyptian Countryside Development initiative

CAIRO – 19 June 2022: Chairman of the Egyptian Countryside Development Company Amr Abdel Wahab stated in a phone-in Saturday that 140,000 feddans (one feddan equals 4,500 square meters) have been cultivated within the initiative.

Abdel Wahab noted that the company's work is not limited to agriculture merely but also includes animal production. He added that his establishment, whose mission is reclaiming four million feddans in the desert areas, is currently working to introduce highly productive cattle.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said in December that counting on cattle that produce 5-6 kilograms of milk each, and that consume the same amount of feed consumed by others that produce 30 kilograms each, is pointless.

In that context, the Egyptian president instructed, during the inauguration of projects in Aswan, substituting existing cattle with highly productive ones.

On his side, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Al Sayed al-Qusair added that the ministry works on improving the heredity of cattle in Egypt.

The president repeated the directives again last week while inaugurating livestock, dairy and mechanized slaughterhouses complex on Monday in Sadat City, Menoufia Governorate.

In three years, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation issued tens of thousands of licenses for cattle, pourtly, and dairy farms making the figure jump from 145 licensed farms in 2017 to almost 56,000 in 2020.

The licenses are also given to fee farms, horse farms, rabbit farms, and agricultural genetics farms.

Minister El Sayed el Qusair stated in March that the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) listed 14 Egyptian facilities as free of Brucellosis and Bovine tuberculosis, which are infectious diseases that infect dairy cows.

Additional reporting by Noha El Tawil