Toshka project

http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6350301.jpg


Toshka Project – Mubarak Pumping Station

The Toshka Project has very ambitious goals. By 2020, when it is due to be completed, it will, hopefully, have transformed half a million acres of desert into arable land. The main engineering feat of the project will be the Mubarak Pumping Station, located in the middle of Lake Nasser.

Creation of a Second Nile Valley

In 1997, the Egyptian government approved the Toshka project to help deal with the rapidly growing population of the country. The project entails building a series of canals and a pumping station to carry water from Lake Nassar to irrigate portions of the Western Desert of Egypt. If successful, it is expected that the recovered land will become home to over three million residents by 2020. The “new” valley will increase Egypt’s arable land area by 10%.

At the center of the project is the Mubarak Pumping Station which cost $436 million to build and which was completed in March 2005. It is located in the center of the lake and is completely surrounded by water. It has 24 vertical pumps which are installed in two parallel lines along both sides of the station. The pumps are load-controlled and have adjustable speed settings. At any one time, only 18 of the pumps are running. Three are used for maintenance needs, and three are kept in reserve. The station with an open 50m-deep intake channel, the deepest inland channel of its kind, will make the complex able to pump 1.2 million cubic meters of water per hour.

This accomplishment in itself is impressive. However, the Mubarak Pumping Station is praised by civil and mechanical engineers for two other, less obvious, reasons. First of all, the structural system that supports the station is made up of steel mini-piles, which are cost-effective and earthquake resistant. Traditional concrete piles would have been very expensive to use in this location. The steel mini-piles are installed at the base of the pumping station. They connect the station to a foundation raft. With this construction, the piles are free to tense against any seismic movement. They also offer some resistance to shearing forces.

Secondly, the underwater areas of the station use a jointless design. This design means that the structure is watertight even at a temperature range from 0 to 50 degrees C. Joints are only used above the normal high water level of the lake. Because of these two engineering achievements, the Mubarak Pumping Station was recognized, when it was completed in 2005, by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the five most outstanding civil engineering achievements of the year.

The Mubarak Pumping Station was sponsored by the Government of Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. The design of the station was completed as a joint venture project between Hamza Associates and Lahmeyer. Finally, the construction of the station was completed by Arabian International, Skanska, and Hitachi.

The Toshka Project, with the Mubarak Pumping Station in particular, is truly an engineering wonder that, when complete, will better the lives of millions of people. Long-term, the project is planned to allow Egypt to meet all of its own food requirements in addition to providing agricultural exports.

http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/civil/articles/59663.aspx

Okey I wasn't sure if It should be with English translation New Valley or Al Wady el Geded. anyway that's the government where this project lies under.

I am also surprised that we haven't got a thread for this project. anyway I found some pictures that'll be posting.

Isn't this the same piece of land that was sold to Saudi Prince Al Walid Bin Talal for A million Egyptian pounds...

:no:

Corruption!

Isn't this the same piece of land that was sold to Saudi Prince Al Walid Bin Talal for A million Egyptian pounds...

:no:

Corruption!

Yep, true ... by accident as they said :lol: and it was actually against the law in Egypt.

I think they solved the problem, I'm not sure but either way there must be solution to take the land back.


BTW in 2017, $60Billion will be spent in this project.

Lake Nasr

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/32052158.jpg

Mubarak Pimping Station

http://images.brighthub.com/46/6/4667A81FB5DC776D2729197ADB905ECB604D2D69_large.jpg

http://images.brighthub.com/EA/7/EA7F24AAE53589B061BB8773810AB2EE23C15DD0_large.jpg

Sheikh Said Channel

http://drilling-blasting-egypt.com/andalos/images/toshka-project-99.jpg

http://www.panoramio.com/photos/original/19780997.jpg

Other Channel

http://www.emendegypt.com/Files/Client/42-20205701_633619814101442247.jpg


More pictures soon.

egypt69 can you add somewhere in the title the total cost of this project is $90billion. and a capital P for Projects, :lol:

More Canals

http://www.emendegypt.com/Files/Client/42-20205707_633619814103004807.jpg

http://www.emendegypt.com/Files/Client/BJ002531_633619814104254855.jpg

http://eg.china-embassy.org/ara/dsxx/W020060316667817031577.JPG

From NASA,

http://i-cias.com/e.o/ill/nw_valley01.jpg

More pictures are coming.

I think this a fondamental project which Egypt needed due to the population increasing rate. I'm sure those 90 billion deserve to be spend for that kind of project!

Same I agree. It's going to turn 10% of Egypt's land into arable land. we have live in 5% of Egypt's total area so doubling that is insane. BTW recently it been said that this 5% increased to 6% that could be the effect of Toshka.

A video

KLNKBB6ayJE

I have to say I'm Impressed! this is a good turn into economy. but they need to somewhat linking the project more to the sea. so maybe in the future 50% of the water come from the sea and the other 50% from the Nile.


Also 1 thing that i don't know is the location. they simply put this project in the driest area in THE WORLD! if they had it north Egypt. it could of been better.

Dont see how this will be feasabile considering all the problem we're having with the Nile Basin States right now....

Dont see how this will be feasabile considering all the problem we're having with the Nile Basin States right now....

I think the Nile Basin "crisis" has been contained for the time being. And this project is indeed under construction at the moment.

This project is a fiasco. First the Toshka canal is unprotected from evaporation in an area where the temprature reaches 50 c. Second the project started in 1997 and is still not the green paradise that was promised, Plans to build 18 towns in the middle of the desert, and attract up to five million people have failled.

I agree about the location it's just too dry. but this project is far from judging it's progress. they still have 10 years. if you look up in google map you can see the green area around the canals is increasing year by year. and obviously as the green area increase this also mean the population increases. but I have to say it attracting the wrong people. it attracting people from Aswan, where it should attract people like slums from the north.

If you are talking about the tinny little green spots in the middle of the deserts, yes I have seen them on google earth. They are ridiculously small. The golf courses in Sharm El Sheikh (which is a very dry area) look bigger. Toshka is not attracting anyone.
Instead of trying to develop an agriculture project in one of the dryest place on the planet, we could ve developped agriculture projects on the north coast of egypt where the land and weather is much more suitable for agriculture.

Yep, I know it could of been WAY better if it was in the north I have even mentioned it somewhere here. and it did attract people just check the video I posted above. you'd also see the developing green paradise there.

as for the green area here you go

the Mubarak Pumping station was completed in 2004/2008 and you can see the progress from then

here what I can find so far.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKL8i8UDRI/AAAAAAAAABw/JuPGlRYXyzM/s576/t1.PNG

that's from far away, I can only spot big stuff. but a closer look.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKL87gFpzI/AAAAAAAAAB0/FVe4yjJ_ruk/s576/t2.PNG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKL9fXKZiI/AAAAAAAAAB4/PB6Po11x9II/s576/t3.PNG

^^ you can clearly see a new community is starting to grow up there.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKL9z83ovI/AAAAAAAAAB8/XyQaKn238_4/s576/t4.PNG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKL-fi3UbI/AAAAAAAAACA/tOxjvd2FOic/s576/t5.PNG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKMNOrshyI/AAAAAAAAACI/s_01PG6BA8c/s576/t7.PNG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKMNcITJWI/AAAAAAAAACM/v2oPkMSVyuw/s576/t8.PNG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_xOvxRiIjePA/TIKMMRLo7pI/AAAAAAAAACE/IbMC8acE9sg/s576/t6.PNG

^^ on the left side you can see a Huge canal system been constructed. and couple of those circled are already there. I'd say that is phenomenal progress for only 6-2 years, turning desert into that in short time. give it until 2017 and you going to see that area something like the delta, BTW it's only half a million metre square of agriculture.


BTW you need to keep in mind that area is HOT!!! you wont see much green. you'd see more wheat and corn and rise. and only corn form those that you'd see it's green area. so that explain why there is no much green area.

egyptians want to move there already. but they need supplies (i.e. good ROADS - why not a motorway down to aswan then toshka? they can afford it, this is a dense country), railway (remember road transport is expensive by the standards of egypt's regular folk), infrastructure (there is not even asphalt running along some of these canals which is expensive), land (i.e. dont sell to the UAE), housing (which costs almost nothing in terms of this project's budget), schools (none there as far as ive heard), medical care (egypt has more doctors per head than some european countries)
i.e.
this project would work if they invested the $90 000 million instead of wasting them on corruption and mismanagement. most egyptians dont know egypt's budget even has that figure in it, and see toshka as a scandal

there are roads, electricity, water and Sewage :lol: all basic infrastructure. but true. It's not like they can afford going to aswan to visit the hospital or to school. to what I know they should be having these stuff done by the completion date, still It's going to be very disappointing if they have those crap like cities. and then in the future they go and think about renovation or rebuilding them. Why is that they can't build the right thing from the first time?

but ya right, there must be a good transportation system connected to dense areas if they want people to move there.

a pic of a plantation in toshka i found:

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570002.jpg

Although the government has spent some LE7 billion on the Toshka land reclamation project, only 60,000 acres of land have so far been cultivated, Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Mohamed Nasr Eddin Allam said on Thursday.

“President Mubarak has a personal interest in Toshka,” Allam said. “He sees it as an agricultural mega-project that has contributed to the development of the economy.”

The minister called on Egyptian and Arab investors in Toshka to expedite the project in advance of a scheduled visit by Mubarak in February.

He refrained, however, from mentioning Saudi prince and business tycoon Walid ibn Tallal’s company, which became the subject of controversy after it was alleged to have purchased land for the project at marked-down prices.

Allam also said that his ministry would provide a UAE company with the water necessary to irrigate 100,000 acres of land in Toshka currently under cultivation, stressing the need to focus on "strategic crops" such as wheat.


Source: http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/minister-le7-billion-spent-toshka-few-tangible-returns

From the prime minster's twitter account.

توقيع عقد شركة المملكة والخاص بأرض توشكي خطوة من خطوات لجنة التسويات التي شكلها مجلس الوزراء لتسوية المنازعات بين الحكومة والمستثمرين

Good to hear :D

The amount of money that had been wasted on this project would make anyone weep, but it's still too much of a cash cow to stop yet apparently.


Friday, 09 September 2011
Nile water runs for the first time in four outlets of Sheikh Jaber Canal

For the first time water ran into four outlets of Sheikh Jaber Al Sabah Canal, north of Sinai to cultivate 53,000 feddans at EGP 158 million, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Dr. Hisham Qandil said during an inspection tour of Salam Canal

Thursday 08/09/2011.

The minister said the government is trying to make maximum use of the infrastructure of Toshka area after spending EGP 6 billion for the reclamation and cultivation of 300,000 feddans.

http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Story.aspx?sid=57812

We could have used all this money to extract water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer and make man made rivers like the ones in Libya.

Even the old mad dog could figure that much out. Why build an artificial surface river bed in one of the hottest areas on earth where it will evaporate, while you could just pipe it all underground where its cool? You can still irrigate the surrounding areas without a fancy looking river running through it just the same. It just doesn't make any sense.

300‏ مليون جنية استثمارات جديدة استصلاح‏10‏ آلاف فدان في توشكي
في اطار اهتمام الحكومة باستكمال المشروعات القومية تقرر تدبير الاستثمارات اللازمة لشركة جنوب الوادي‏(‏ توشكي‏)‏ لاستصلاح‏10‏ الاف فدان جديدة ليصل اجمالي المساحة المستصلحة والمزروعة من الشركة‏40‏ ألف فدان في منطقة توشكي‏.‏

صرح المهندس سعودي عليوة رئيس شركة جنوب الوادي بان الاستثمارات المطلوبة تقدر بنحو300 مليون جنية لاستكمال باقي المساحة التي خصصت للشركة, مشيرا الي انه تم الانتهاء من اعمال البنية الاساسية لـ30 ألف فدان و جار حاليا زراعتهم بالكامل, منها10 آلاف فدان تزرع قمحا وشعيرا وفواكه و عنبا وبرتقالا و14 صنفا من الخضر.
قال انه تم الاتفاق في اجتماع برئاسة المهندس أحمد السيد رئيس الشركة القومية للتشييد و بحضور يوسف الشيخ نائب الشركة القومية للتشييد علي تأجير3 آلاف فدان للقطاع الخاص والذي نجح بالاشتراك مع احدي الشركات الاجنبية في زراعة محصول عباد الشمس والذرة الصفراء في مساحة400 فدان و تقرر في العام الحالي بعد نجاح التجربة زيادة المساحة الي2000 فدان لزراعتها عباد الشمس والذرة الصفراء والفول السوداني.
اضاف بان الشركة تقوم بتسويق انتاجها من الخضر والفاكهة علي القائمين في توشكي بالاضافة الي فتح منفذ للبيع في ابو سمبل, مشيرا الي وجود عمال تابعين لشركات استصلاح الاراضي بالاضافة الي عمال من وزارة الكهرباء والزراعة في منطقة توشكي و يصل عددهم إلي نحو40 ألف فرد.
قال ان جزءا من انتاج الخضر والفاكهة يتم تسليمة للتجار لبيعة في اسوان وبالنسبة للقمح فيتم تسليمه إلي مطاحن أسوان وقنا طبقا لتعليمات وزارة التموين, قال ان الشركة تلقت امس طلبات جديدة من بعض المستثمرين لتاجير5 آلاف فدان لزراعتها فول سوداني وبطاطس وبعض اصناف الخضر وتخصيصها للتصدير الي أوروبا وتبحث حاليا اللجنة العليا لتثمين الأراضي بتحديد القيمة الايجارية والتي كانت تتراوح بين2000 إلي2500 جنية الفدان في عام2011 كما ان هناك مجموعة اخري تطلب شراء مساحات من الاراضي او زراعتها بنظام حق الانتفاع لمدة لا تقل عن25 سنة وجار حاليا تحديد قيمة حق الانتفاع و اوضح احتياج المستثمرين لشراء الارض الي زراعة الاشجار التي لاتؤتي ثمارها الا بعد عدة سنوات.
http://www.ahram.org.eg/Economy/News/126330.aspx

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570307.jpg

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570097.jpg

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6569844.jpg

Egypt's new Nile Valley: grand plan gone bad
Bradley Hope

Apr 22, 2012


TOSHKA, EGYPT // On a two-lane road between between the Egyptian cities of Aswan and Abu Simbel in the south of the country, a blue sign reads: "Welcome to the New City of Toshka". But yawning on either side of the road is a vast, empty desert that stretches for miles.

Toshka was designed in 1997 as the beginning of the relocation of 20 per cent of Egypt's 85 million citizens to a "new" Nile valley, using water pumped from Lake Nasser to irrigate the barren sands of the Western Desert.

It was to be Hosni Mubarak's grandest legacy - an answer to Egypt's crowded cities, pollution, food shortages and unemployment problems all addressed in one mega-project. Toshka became known as "Mubarak's pyramid" for its unprecedented scale as well as the slow pace of construction.

A half-hour drive south from the "New City of Toshka" reveals the meagre results of Mubarak's pharaonic ambitions 15 years later. There are only 21,000 hectares of farmland, less than 10 per cent of the goal. None of the cities, factories, schools or hospitals have been built. Most produce is exported for the benefit of the private companies that bought land there.

It is now up to whatever government will be in place after presidential elections scheduled for next month to decide what to do with its huge investment in a largely dysfunctional project with uncertain prospects.

How elected officials choose to rebuild Egypt's ailing economy will begin with deliberations over decades of investments in projects across Egypt that on the whole failed to deliver jobs, greater distribution of wealth and a competitive advantage for the country as a whole in the region.

The country's most powerful political party, the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, is against continuing Toshka as planned, an official said.

"We are completely against Toshka, as it was envisioned," said Mohamed Abdul Fattah, the party's secretary general in Aswan - the biggest city near Toshka. "The project was media propaganda for Mubarak to have his legacy … What we need is planning and management, not a fantasy to be remembered by."

Muslim Brotherhood officials have articulated the group's own "renaissance" plan for Egypt that seeks to boost the economy with private sector initiatives and large-scale projects. The challenge will be how to move forward without encountering the same pitfalls as Toshka.

For Egyptians, the project taps into a multi-generational dream that started in the 1940s and 1950s to "green the desert" through engineering and take advantage of the 95 per cent of the country that is uninhabited because it is too dry.

Since the emergence of ancient Egyptian civilisation in 3200 BC, people have lived along the lush shores of the Nile river and delta that seeps into the Mediterranean Sea.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser's construction of the High Aswan Dam between 1960 and 1970 inspired scientists to speculate on the possibility of a second valley. The dam created the 5,250 square kilometre Lake Nasser, provided electricity and controlled flooding.

Standing before a field of swaying wheat at one of the largest farms at Toshka, Rashwan Atallah Atallah still sees the establishment of a new city as a vibrant possibility.

Born in the Lower Egypt city of Kafr El Sheikh to a farming family with just 1.26 hectares of land, he is now the head of agriculture for the state-run South Valley Development Company that has prepared 9,660 hectares of farms at Toshka.

"The people in Cairo say this is all a failure before they even visit," he said. "I would move my family here someday … We need a little more time."


Toshka is a testament to Egypt's love of mega-projects as a solution for its demographic and economic problems, but it also was a nod to Mubarak's propaganda-fuelled attempt to quell societal tensions that were coming to a boil in the final two decades of his rule before he resigned last year.

The project was the focus of a major government public relations effort, especially in its early years. News reports were rife with construction updates and enthusiastic discussions of its effects on Egypt.

The state-run Eastern Company introduced Toshka cigarettes, while Egypt's most famous children's author wrote five books for young audiences on the project. Toshka the Prosperity, set in 2017, portrayed a utopian city where a young girl invites cousins from the "Old Valley" - the fictional name given to the green strip along the Nile that is the home to nearly all Egyptians today - to visit.

"You can live in a spacious house with big rooms surrounded by a singing garden," the girl writes to her relatives at the start of the book. "No doubt your houses in the Old Valley are small and narrow."

But the gap between the spin and the reality began to widen over the years, leading Emma Deputy, a doctoral student writing her dissertation on the project, to conclude Toshka was more valuable as a symbolic answer to Egypt's problems than an actual new Nile Valley.

"Toshka was a quick fix for all these social problems, lack of food security, joblessness," she said. "If you think about it, this project was aimed at a generation that is now in their 20s, the same population that led the revolution last year."

In Abu Simbel, a small city on the shores of Lake Nasser, Mayor Asaad Abeid El Majeed said he grew tired of hearing about Toshka when he lobbied for changes with the government back in Cairo. Earlier this month, more than 100 youths demonstrated in front of his office because of unemployment and a shortage of housing.

"The answer to our problems is not in big projects," he said. "It's about simple things like changing the law in our governorate to open more land for affordable housing. It's about investment that leads to jobs."

At the Future Village of Abu Simbel, a collection of bare-bone, one-storey houses on the edge of the city, farmers say they have seen their crops shrivel and die because of water shortages even though they are located just a few kilometres from Lake Nasser. The government has neglected them in favour of projects like Toshka, they say.

"Nobody wants to take responsibility for our problems," said Jaber Ahmed Abdallah, who moved to the village from Aswan as part of a government programme to give landless farmers some property and a home.

At Toshka, an hour up the road, the fields are awash in water.

The $436 million (Dh1.6 billion) Mubarak Pumping Station, completed in 2005 as one of the biggest in the world, can pump as much as 10 per cent of the water in the lake to Toshka through the open-air Sheikh Zayed Canal.

The water has led to some modest success at Toshka, with orchards of grapes and fields of wheat, beans and peanuts in operation. But nearly all of the produce is exported because that's more profitable for the farming companies and their contracts with the government don't require that any of the crops be sold domestically.

Egypt is facing a growing agricultural shortfall and has become the world's biggest wheat buyer, buying about half of its wheat.

The farms have provided just a few thousand jobs, while the country is dealing with rising unemployment and a need for 700,000 new jobs every year. Egyptian government officials said last year that they were renegotiating contracts with the companies at Toshka to include requirements to speed up cultivation. Those efforts came on the back of allegations of corruption related to land deals there and across the country.

Saudi Arabia's Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, the owner of Kingdom Agricultural Development Company, agreed last May to hand back 31,500 of its 42,000 hectares, with the option of buying more if it cultivates the land. Al Dahra, an Abu Dhabi company, also reached an agreement last year to keep its 18,000 hectares in exchange for assurances it would speed up cultivation.

But none of these agreements deal with the larger issue: whether to proceed with building the housing and infrastructure that comes with a new city. And what's more, how to divorce Toshka from its greatest supporter, the fallen president.

A rare proponent for forging ahead is Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, who was Egypt's minister of water and irrigation when the project was launched in 1997. He said Toshka is a good idea that's been hampered by ineptitude.

"From the beginning Toshka was designed to develop a new community, not only as an agricultural project," said Mr Abu Zeid, who now heads the Arab Water Council in Cairo.

"The fact remains that we cannot sustain ourselves in a narrow valley, with all the social and economic problems of overcrowding. We have to go to the desert and we have to build. Or the country will collapse."

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/egypts-new-nile-valley-grand-plan-gone-bad

There is no doubt that a Toshka project is an extraordinary feat of engineering and human architectural ingenuity but in long terms, I do not think it is sustainable. Nile is huge but with growing tensions in region about usage of water and changing climate, future is not promising for Toshka.

^^ next to the toshka project from the other side near the Libyan boarder lies the world's biggest aquifer. So if anything happen to the Nile we have different other resources.

The minister was talking about this few days ago on tv, it's not exclusive to toshka btw.

إعلان قواعد طرح 110 آلاف فدان للاستثمار الزراعي في توشكى خلال أيام
تعلن وزارة الزراعة خلال أيام ضوابط التصرف في مساحة 110 آلاف فدان للاستثمار الزراعي في توشكى لكبار المستثمرين وصغار المزارعين، ضمن المشروع القومي لسد الفجوة الغذائية البالغ مساحته مليون و250 ألف فدان.

وقالت مصادر رسمية بوزارة الزراعة إن طرح المساحات الجديدة يأتي بسبب غياب المنافسة بين المستثمرين العرب والمصريين خلال السنوات الماضية في هذه المناطق، في حين شككت المصادر فيما سمته «قدرة الدولة على طرح أراض جديدة للاستثمار الزراعي في مناطق منخفض القطارة وسيناء وسيوة، بسبب زيادة معدلات التعديات على أراضي الدولة في هذه المناطق بسبب الانفلات الأمني».

واتهمت المصادر هيئة التعمير والتنمية الزراعية بطرح مساحات من الأراضي للبيع بنظام المزايدة لتحصيل الأموال فقط، رغم أن هذه المساحات عليها وضع يد لعدد من المواطنين في المناطق المستهدف طرحها للاستثمار، وهو ما أكدته الشكاوى المتكررة المعروضة على وزير الزراعة من عدد من المستفيدين، بأنهم فوجئوا بوضع اليد على الأراضي التي تمت المزايدة عليها، خاصة في وادي النطرون.

وأشارت المصادر إلى أن توتر العلاقات بين مصر والإمارات والسعودية تسبب في تأخير ضخ استثمارات سعودية وإماراتية في المشروع دون مبرر، رغم أن مسار الاستثمار الزراعي العربي بمشروعي توشكى وشرق العوينات يختلف عن مسار العلاقات السياسية بين الدول، لأنه يعتمد على توفير مناخ الاستثمار المناسب في هذه المناطق.

ولفتت المصادر إلى أن الشركات السعودية والإماراتية حصدت المزيد من التسهيلات لتنفيذ برامج للاستصلاح في أراضي المشروعين دون تقدم على أرض الواقع أو زيادة مساحات الاستصلاح، مؤكدة أهمية مراجعة العقود التي تم إبرامها مع المستثمرين العرب لاتخاذ قرارات لتصويب الأوضاع بما يحقق طفرة للاستثمار في هذه المناطق التي تستهدف الدولة من خلالها زراعة مساحة تصل إلى 700 ألف فدان.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/1635851

One feddan is 4.2 km2 so they're talking about 462000 km2 i.e. half of Egypt's size? :?

Remenkeme, your maths is bad! One feddan is 4200m^2 which is 0.0042km^2

In other words, a feddan is a 100m by 42m land (just to make life simple). 1km = 1000m so that's 0.1km by .042m. The area is 0.1*0.042 = 0.0042km^2. Or if you want to convert it in one go, 4200/(1000^2) which equals 0.0042km^2.

0.0042*110,000 = 462km^2 that's 0.0462% of Egypt's land or 231/500000 of Egypt's land (approx).

Oh, I counted it as regular meters. :doh: So it's an area of 462km² that they plan to irrigate? How are the communities in Toskha going along (how many people live there now)?

:lol::lol: BTW I just noticed that 0.05% is much. considering that the whole arable land in Egypt is 7% that's at least another 1% increase b/c toshka is only part of the expansion.

I'm not sure about the communities in Toshka though I guess it's the main problem in toshka and this expansion is them trying to fix this problem.

I didn't know that they had made actual lakes there. Interesting, looking on Google earth it actually looks pretty extensive but the area they have irrigated so far is tiny.

I like how they're using modern irrigation techniques though.

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570211.jpg
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6569453.jpg
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570307.jpg
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/6570002.jpg

http://farmlandgrab.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sahara_helikopter.jpg
http://foodmapper.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/melon-farm.png
http://foodmapper.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/toshka-grape-farm.png

http://www.incendiaryimage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ToshkaEgypt_003-796x1200.jpg
http://www.incendiaryimage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ToshkaEgypt_006-1200x796.jpg
http://www.incendiaryimage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ToshkaEgypt_010-1200x796.jpg
http://www.incendiaryimage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ToshkaEgypt_001-1200x796.jpg

I know, it pretty awesome. Only if we cared enough to go and get our 20 feddan and started farming it.

Yeah, but we're going to need a real visionary to get the project rolling in the right direction again. It was poorly executed from the very beginning. And is every Egyptian entitled to 20 feddan?

Indeed, Nd yea individuals are entitled to 20 feddan with a max of 300 feddan per family. Small businesses can get up to 200 feddan and major business can get 500-1,000 feddan.

For us individuals we must build a residential section of the land of an area of 400km^2 max. I'm not sure about the businesses

That sounds too good to be true, all the poor people would be moving there or would sell their land for some money.

Nah they wouldn't, It'll be away from home an the family. Also the infrastructure is going to be u/c and they wont even move in until the houses are built. So I think the businesses are going to take most of the land and the agricultural students will take some of the land and few enthusiasts here and there (Maybe me? jk)

I'd take my plot, build the world's deepest pool and use all water from Lake Nasser to myself. :troll:

:lol::lol: Good luck paying the water bill :troll:

:lol: