Building and Sustaining the High Production Capacity of Egypt's Irrigated Lands: A Long-Term Research Program

ABSTRACT

Egypt's already high productive irrigated agriculture is currently subject to unprecedented expansion in area and intensification, while competition with industrial and domestic sectors for the fixed supply of Nile water continues to increase. Salinization, heavy input use, nutrient export and pollution all threaten the health of soils that have been feeding Egypt for centuries. At the same time, the build-up of newly reclaimed desert soils to economically sustainable productive capacity is a major challenge. A new long-term research program addresses these issues in a multidisciplinary way; long-term agronomic trials (with such variables as water quantity, water quality, nutrient inputs and crop rotations) at sites in both the old lands and the newly reclaimed areas will be complemented by extensive long-term monitoring in villages close to the experimental sites for farmers' perspectives, farming practices and condition of their soils and crops.