“The inauguration of the New Delta project shows that development does not end, ambition does not stop, and that it is only with hard work that we can confront global crises,” said President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi during the inauguration of Egypt’s New Delta project this week.
He said the project was a strategic step in the direction of agricultural development, aiming to achieve food security and build a productive economy for generations to come.
The New Delta is a huge agricultural project that aims to transform about 2.2 million feddans of desert into a green cultivated area to secure food supplies.
It comes through investments of approximately LE800 billion including between LE350,000 and LE400,000 per feddan in addition to the cost of construction of new roads of up to 12,000 km.
In the same context, the president pointed to the challenges related to providing the necessary water for the project. “Hundreds of feddans have been cultivated by utilising treated agricultural drainage water to produce the finest agricultural crops,” Al-Sisi said.
He highlighted the fact that the natural geographical slope of land in this part of Egypt required the establishment of 19 pumping stations to provide the water necessary for the cultivation of the 2.2 million feddans.
He also noted the establishment of power stations with a total capacity of about 2,000 Megawatts.
Al-Sisi emphasised that the project’s strategic vision for boosting Egypt’s agricultural productivity rests on integrating old and new land. The Fertile Nile Valley and Delta will continue to yield traditional staples such as wheat and corn, while newly reclaimed desert areas will be dedicated to crops that suit them more like sugar beet, maximising land efficiency and strengthening agricultural cycles.
He said that the New Delta project provides about two million job opportunities, stressing that these are sustainable job opportunities and not temporary ones.
Most of the work on the New Delta project will be carried out by private companies. “We have concluded agreements with 150 private companies that are in charge of reclaiming and cultivating the land regarding the targeted crops,” Al-Sisi said.
However, he stressed the difficulty of achieving self-sufficiency in all crops, whether in Egypt or elsewhere, as agricultural production depends on various climatic, water, and environmental considerations.
Egypt imports between 14 and 17 million tons of animal feed annually, in addition to wheat imports.
Bahaa Al-Ghannam, director of the Future of Egypt for Sustainable Development Authority, explained that the infrastructure for the project is based on the Rod Al-Farag and Daba axis, the regional ring road, the Sphinx Airport, the Alamein Road, and the Sphinx Road that connects the New Delta to the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road.
The New Delta emerged from a smaller project established on an area of just 450,000 feddans and depending on groundwater.
“But as the president ordered the construction of two water systems, it was called the New Delta. There is a western route that comprises 7.5 million cubic metres of water equipped with an agricultural drainage treatment plant and the eastern route opened this week,” he said.
Experts agree that the New Delta will revolutionise agricultural production in Egypt.
Hussein Abdel-Rahman Abu Saddam, head of the Farmers Syndicate, believes that the location of the project is the secret to its success.
“It is located on virgin land in Egypt’s Western Desert south of the Dabaa axis and north of the Oases and extending to Wadi Al-Natroun and east and west of the Qattara Depression,” Abu Saddam said, noting that “it is easy to connect it to Alexandria and the Sphinx International Airport and to the Rod Al-Farag-Debaa axis and the Cairo-Alexandria Road.”
The project extends over the four governorates of Giza, Matrouh, Beheira, and Fayoum.
Economist Ali Al-Idrissi agreed that the New Delta project will significantly add to Egypt’s agricultural area, and that this will support its ability to increase the local production of strategic crops, most notably wheat, corn, and vegetable oil.
“These are the crops we usually import, and so this project will help to reduce their imports to minimum levels,” Al-Idrissi said.
Abdel-Moneim Al-Sayed, director of the Cairo Centre for Economic Studies, a think tank, confirmed that the project represents one of the largest integrated national projects for agricultural and urban expansion in Egypt.
In a TV interview with the DMC channel, Al-Sayed explained that the project is not limited to land reclamation but also includes supporting agricultural innovation and establishing new urban and productive communities.
“The project aims to double the volume of Egyptian agricultural exports to more than 10 million tons, which will enhance the competitiveness of Egyptian products in global markets and double the country’s foreign-currency resources,” Al-Sayed said.
He added that the project’s strategic location near the Borg Al-Arab Airport and the port of Alexandria, along with its establishment of smart strategic warehouses, could transform Egypt into an international logistics centre for warehousing and exporting agricultural products.
He said that the project will create around two million direct job opportunities, in addition to 500,000 to 600,000 indirect job opportunities, making it one of the largest projects supporting the labour market in the coming years.
Abbas Sharaki, a professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University’s Faculty of Engineering, indicated that the New Delta project relies on three main sources of irrigation water, the first of which is the Nile, from which about 10 million cubic metres of water are taken daily through a canal branching off from the Rosetta branch.
The canal passes through the Sheikh Zayed area and also contributes to the establishment of new urban communities, he said.
Sharaki added that the second source of water for the project is treated agricultural drainage water from the New Delta plant west of Alexandria, which is the largest in the world and has a capacity of up to 7.5 million cubic metres of water per day.
The third source is groundwater taken from the desert, he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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