Roundup: Egypt to boost water use efficiency via mechanized raised bed farming

International and regional agencies announced Monday the success of an effective practice in irrigated farming in Egypt that uses mechanized raised beds to promote water use efficiency.

The announcement came during a high level traveling workshop in the Sharqiya Governorate, 60 km north of Cairo, which was hosted by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Zagazig University in Egypt and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The workshop was meant to encourage farmers to adopt the new irrigation mechanism.

Raised-beds are a type of planting crops in which furrows, long, narrow trenches made in the ground by a plow, are widely spaced and crops are planted on raised strips.

The width of the strips is determined to ensure homogenous adequate water distribution into the soil profile to meet crop water requirements.

The raised bed farming technology along with a full production package including improved crop varieties and agronomic practices were developed to answer problems of water scarcity in Egypt.

The practice was successfully developed by ARC, Zagazig University and ICARDA, in close collaboration with its local partners, within the framework of the Egyptian National Wheat Campaign and the Arab Food Security Project. It was financed by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), the Islamic Development Bank, the OPEC Fund for International Development, and disseminated to farmers, covering an area of over 29,000 hectares in Egypt.

In addition to improving water use efficiency by 75 per cent compared to the traditional surface irrigation, raised beds, along with the complementary technology package, result in lower costs of irrigation and higher crop productivity.

As wheat yields are increased by up to 25%, subsequently raised bed farming also greatly influences farmers' incomes.

Xinhua reporters visited the farms that use the new technology in Sharqiya and interviewed Haj Hamada, one of the farmers who adopted this mechanism.

Hamada told Xinhua that he has been using this irrigation method for four years.

"My yields of weight have increased from 18 tons to 22 a year since I adopted this technology," he said. "This technology saves more water, fertilizers and seeds."

Fawzi Karaja, an adviser with FAO's Regional Irrigation and Water Resources Office, told Xinhua that his agency is working to encourage wide use of this technology nationwide.

"We hope that we could help Egypt produce 75 percent of its wheat needs," he said.

The technology package has already been tested in farmers' fields on wheat, berseem clover, faba bean, maize and cotton through an ICARDA-led "Irrigation Benchmark Project" in the Egyptian Delta.

The package implementation resulted in substantial improvement in agriculture productivity and on-farm irrigation management in main irrigated lands.

Highlights included an increase in wheat productivity by 25 percent and 15 percent for faba bean, and reduction in applied irrigation water by approximately 30 percent.

"Egypt was the first country that welcomed and cooperated with ICARDA as a strategic partner on research linked to water scarcity. Since ICARDA's founding in 1977, the government of Egypt and ICARDA have built a solid base for cooperation, resulting in many projects, all of them related to research for sustainable development and food security," Dr. Mahmoud Solh, ICARDA Director General said during the event.

The 2017 National Water Resources Plan for Egypt estimates that the total cultivated areas in the agricultural sector will increase to 4.05 million hectares by the year 2017 and to 4.83 million by 2030.

The plan also anticipates that cropped areas will increase to approximately 8.06 million hectares in 2017, with an intensification rate of 198 percent, and to about 9.66 million hectares in 2030, with an intensification rate of 199 percent.

In recognition of the threats that continue to constrain agricultural production systems in Egypt and the region, ICARDA and FAO strengthened their collaboration and partnership in 2015 through a new agreement with the aim to scale out proven, climate-smart technologies, including the scaling out of the integrated mechanized raised bed production package. Endit