Mennonite
Central
Committee

Turning the desert green in Egypt

Gladys Terichow
May 18, 2006

"It is desert land — it is barren now but soon it will be green," Bishop Thomas of the Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt said of nearly 20 acres of land soon to be irrigated through a joint water project of the church and MCC.

And not only will the brown desert turn green, it will be an "organic" green, according to Bishop Thomas. The church's agricultural training center will reclaim desert as farmland using organic agricultural techniques.

This project, undertaken by the Coptic Orthodox Church Diocese of Qosseya, was made possible through a grant of $40,000 U.S. from MCC. The funds are being used to drill a well and develop an irrigation system for eight hectares, or 20 acres, of land.

The well, drilled at a depth of 158 meters, or 518 feet, has the capacity to provide irrigation for a proposed expansion of an additional eight hectares.

"If we go deep, very deep, there is enough water to reclaim desert land for food production," says Bishop Thomas. "Our studies show the water is very good quality. We want to tell people, 'yes, we can conquer the land. We can work together to make the desert green'."

Pressing need for farmland

Reclamation of desert land is critical in Egypt, which has a population of 76 million and a high population growth rate. More than 95 percent of Egypt's population lives on five percent of its land, concentrated around the Nile River.

Although less than four percent of the Egypt's total land area is arable, agriculture nonetheless plays an important role in the Egyptian economy and food supply. Industrial vocational training centers are fairly common in Egypt but there is little opportunity for farmers to learn specialized farming techniques and grow chemical-free produce, explains the Bishop.

The organic agricultural training center, which will also include basic housing for participants, is located at the diocese's Anafora Center in the northern desert about 80 kilometres north of Cairo. The center is used for prayer retreats, ecumenical encounters, training and conferences.

About 20 families, selected by the diocese, will participate in the one-year training program, explains Bishop Thomas. The first session gets underway this spring with the seeding of the first crop. Corn, cucumber, tomatoes and hibiscus for teas and medicines are the main summer crops and wheat, beans, potatoes, garlic, onions, dill and herbs are winter crops.

In addition to learning farming techniques participants will develop a marketing cooperative for sharing production costs and farm income. Twenty per cent of the profits will be reinvested in the project for growth and sustainability.

The training center, he says, will provide safe food for local markets, improve employment opportunities for people in rural areas, give participants skills to implement new farming methods and raise awareness of organic farming, food safety and protecting the environment.

"We will teach people how to produce ecologically with the concept of taking care of nature," he says, adding the program also includes spiritual teachings. "The seeds, earth, air and water are blessings that God has given us."

An ongoing partnership

MCC has been placing service workers in Egyptian church settings since 1973. This involvement grew out of relationships MCC built when sending relief shipments in response to devastation caused by the 1967 war between Egypt and Israel.

Bishop Thomas and his diocese also run other education and income generation projects. In past years MCC has provided teachers for schools run by the diocese. MCC currently has an opening for a peace development worker to strengthen the diocese's ability to respond to conflict.

MCC's friendship with Bishop Thomas started in 1990 when MCC approached the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, Pope Shenouda III, to request a representative from the church join MCC's Bridging the Gulf Tour in North America to voice the opinions of Arab people concerning the Gulf war, explains Linda Herr, an MCC country representative in Egypt.

"The Pope requested that Bishop Thomas represent the Coptic Orthodox, and so the friendship between Bishop Thomas and the Mennonites began," explains Herr. In 1994, MCC arranged for Bishop Thomas to study at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, and to speak at MCC's annual meeting in Florida.

MCC currently has 15 service workers and staff in Egypt. Egyptian Christians represent about six percent of the population in this predominantly Muslim country.