Cairo, Egypt - The Food and Agriculture organization of the United nations (FAO) in Egypt delivered today, five large greenhouses covering an area of 680 square meter per greenhouse, and 5 agricultural tunnels covering an area of 320 square meter per tunnel, along with an integrated drip irrigation system for each of them, with the aim of producing vegetable seedlings and growing crops. Meg. General Essam Saad, governor of Fayoum attended the delivering ceremony with the participation of Mr. Mario Margiotta, Team Leader of EU- JRDP, and a large number of officials and farmers.

This step comes in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, the Union of Producers and Exporters of Horticultural Crops, the Faculty of Agriculture in Fayoum University and the Fayoum Agro-Organic Development association, as part of the project “Good Agricultural Practices for Sustainable Improvement of Quality and Quantity of Horticultural Production of Small-Scale Farmers in Fayoum”, financed by European Union-Joint Rural Development Program and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.

These greenhouses were implemented in the five targeted villages affiliated to the districts of Tamiya and Youssef El Sedik, which are Fanous, Dar al-Salam, Manshaat El Gamal, Qasr El Gebaly and Qaroun.  The project aims to develop good agricultural practices for 1000 small farmers with an average of 200 farmers in each village, and to train associations and famers to produce and market good seedlings in these villages.

"These projects fall within the interest of farmers, as they contribute to improve the living condition of people in the governorate. In cooperation with FAO, the relevant agricultural associations, and Fayoum university, we aim at disseminating good agricultural practices at the governorate level and to apply the criteria for the optimal use of irrigation water, which will lead to higher quality and productivity,” said General Essam Saad, governor of Fayoum.

 “The overall goal of this project is to improve the living condition of small-scale horticulture farmers, to increase their crops’ quality and quantity, and to increase the competitiveness of their production by adopting good agricultural practices and by emphasizing on reducing the use of pesticides while increasing productivity. This project also aims at disseminating the above-mentioned concepts all over Fayoum governorate, as well as improving the efficiency of the projects’ partners to manage the greenhouses in a way that ensures their continuity, after the project ends, as a productive unit of seedlings and horticultural crops of high quality and competitive prices for the benefit of the small farmer, “ said Mr. Hussein Gadain, FAO representative in Egypt.   

Four intensive training workshops were conducted on "Greenhouses management and Operation", "Soil Preparation”, and “Fertilization and Prevention Programs" targeting all the workers and supervisors of greenhouses in the targeted villages as well as the members of the related associations. The training focused on financial feasibility study, seedling production, soil and seedling trays preparation, fertilization and prevention, technical follow up, and greenhouses and drip irrigation system maintenance.

In collaboration with the “Union of Producers and Exporters of Horticultural Crops”, one of the project partners, and with the participation of small farmers, greenhouses have been prepared to produce tomatoes, cabbages, green peppers and eggplant seedlings. All these seedlings were distributed for free to small farmers who are members in the targeted associations to encourage them to grow horticultural crops, source of higher income for the small farmer and his family.

In addition to the production of 13000 cucumber seedlings in all the greenhouses and tunnels in the targeted villages with an average of 2600 seedlings per village, provided that the crop return is an income for the participating NGOs, as well as for the farmers who contributed their land to build the greenhouses and the tunnels.

Mr. Mario Margiotta indicated that the European Union- Joint Rural Development Programme (EU-JRDP) is a rural development intervention under the European Neighborhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD) in Egypt, a policy initiative of the European Union translating its commitment to inclusive growth and stability in its neighborhood. The total cost of the Programme is €21, 89 million entirely financed by the European Union, as well as €11 million   from the Italian Agency for Development cooperation. The EU-JRDP duration is five years (2014-2019) in three governorates: Matrouh, Fayoum and El-Menia