Sisi directs gov’t to increase arable land in Sinai

CAIRO - 13 April 2020: President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi directed the government to increase the arable area in Sinai, announced Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli in a statement on Monday.

With the completion of building Egypt’s largest wastewater treatment plant of Bahr al-Baqar and the completion of the Mahsamh Wastewater Treatment plant in Ismailia, the government will start reclaiming new land in Sinai, particularly in Central Sinai, the prime minister said during the weekly meeting of the Cabinet on Monday.

Madbouli asked the Ministry of Agriculture to prepare a detailed study on the arable lands in the area, according to the statement.

On April 9, 2020, President Sisi directed the government to expand the reclamation of arable lands nationwide to grow strategic crops, said Egyptian presidential spokesperson Bassam Radi in a statement.

In mitigation, Egypt is building the sewage water treatment plant to face water shortage that could affect around 0.5 million people in Sinai. The plant, which will treat sewage and agricultural wastewater of the longest drain (Bahr al-Baqar 1 drain), located in the east of Suez Canal. It will produce 5 million cubic meters per day to cultivate 250,000 feddans.

In 2018, the head of Water Administration at the Armed Forces Engineering Authority (AFEA)- tasked to establish Bahr al-Baqar plant - said that the plant will produce 5 million cubic meters per day to cultivate 250,000 feddans.