Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Changes in Egypt

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa. Most of Egypt 82.2 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 km2, where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt’s residents live in urban areas, with most people spread across the densely populated centers of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta. Egypt’s fertile area totals about 3.3 million ha, about one-quarter of which is land reclaimed from the desert. However, the reclaimed lands only add 7% to the total value of agricultural production. Even though only 3% of the land is arable, it is extremely productive and can be cropped two or even three times annually. Most land is cropped at least twice a year, but agricultural productivity is limited by salinity, which afflicts an estimation of 35% of cultivated land, and drainage issues. Climate change is a natural phenomenon, but humankind has drastically altered the process. Climate change has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall timing and quantity, CO2, and solar radiation. Agriculture can both mitigate or worsen global warming. Some of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and much of the methane emitted into the atmosphere is caused by the decomposition of organic matter in wet soils such as rice paddies. Egypt’s agricultural development has been constrained by, among other factors, the need to conserve scarce natural resources, the pressures of rapid urbanization, the onslaught of the desert, and, not least important, technological limitations and restrictive economic structures.