{"id":24626,"date":"2018-12-07T06:22:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T06:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24626"},"modified":"2018-12-07T06:22:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T06:22:54","slug":"key-hezbollah-financier-pleads-guilty-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24626","title":{"rendered":"Key Hezbollah financier pleads guilty in US"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nKAFR AL-DAWAR, Egypt: Lush green fields blanket northern Egypt\u2019s Nile Delta, but the country\u2019s agricultural heartland and its vital freshwater resources are under threat from a warming climate.
The fertile arc-shaped basin is home to nearly half the country\u2019s population, and the river that feeds it provides Egypt with 90 percent of its water needs.
But climbing temperatures and drought are drying up the mighty Nile \u2014 a problem compounded by rising seas and soil salinization, experts and farmers say.
Combined, they could jeopardize crops in the Arab world\u2019s most populous country, where the food needs of its 98 million residents are only expected to increase.
\u201cThe Nile is shrinking. The water doesn\u2019t reach us anymore,\u201d says Talaat El-Sisi, a farmer who has grown wheat, corn and other crops for 30 years in the southern Delta governorate of Menoufia.
\u201cWe\u2019ve been forced to tap into the groundwater and we\u2019ve stopped growing rice,\u201d a cereal known for its greedy water consumption, he adds.
By 2050, the region could lose up to 15 percent of its key agricultural land due to salinization, according to a 2016 study published by Egyptian economists.
The yield of tomato crops could drop by 50 percent, the study said, with staple cereals like wheat and rice falling 18 and 11 percent respectively.
In Kafr Al-Dawar in the delta\u2019s north, Egypt\u2019s irrigation ministry and the United Nations are working on eco-friendly techniques like solar-powered watering that experts say emit less greenhouse gases and could help improve crop yields.
On site, two farmers wearing traditional galabiya gowns show off shiny new solar panels framed by row after row of corn, barley and wheat.
Sayed Soliman, eyes bright and cane in hand, runs a group of about 100 farmers who work a plot of more than 100 hectares (around 250 acres).
The seasoned farmer is delighted. He can now power the pumps that water his field without relying on Egypt\u2019s faulty electricity grid and expensive fossil fuels like diesel that are responsible for climate change.
Diesel-powered generators are now only used \u201cwhen necessary,\u201d he says, such as after sunset.
After his success, a neighboring village is also switching to solar-powered irrigation.
\u201cOne of the priorities is innovation… so that Egypt can make the most of its water,\u201d says Hussein Gadain, the UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Egypt.
\u201cThe delta plays an important role in the country\u2019s food security.\u201d
Ibrahim Mahmoud, head of the irrigation ministry\u2019s development projects, said plans were in place to modernize watering systems across the country by 2050.
The strategy, he says, is intended to improve farmers\u2019 \u201cenvironmental conditions, standards of living and productivity.\u201d
But in a country in the tight grip of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Nile Delta and its resources remain an ultra-sensitive topic.
AFP\u2019s visit to Kafr Al-Dawar was closely supervised by the ministry.
In front of officials, farmers stuck to well-worn talking points about the delta\u2019s bounty but politely skirted questions on water scarcity.
El-Sisi has made the Nile\u2019s water a \u201clife or death issue\u201d for Egypt, particularly in the framework of negotiations with neighboring Sudan, as well as Ethiopia.
Cairo fears Addis Ababa\u2019s controversial Grand Renaissance Dam will bring consequences downstream.
For water management consultant Dalia Gouda, Egypt currently has two priorities when it comes to combatting its water scarcity dilemma: tackling overpopulation and defending the country\u2019s interests against Ethiopia\u2019s dam.
\u201cThere are many interesting projects under way to improve water efficiency,\u201d says Gouda.
\u201cAlthough they are not necessarily designed to combat the effects of climate change, they can only prepare the authorities to deal with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAFR AL-DAWAR, Egypt: Lush green fields blanket northern Egypt\u2019s Nile Delta, but the country\u2019s agricultural heartland and its vital freshwater resources are under threat from a warming climate.The fertile arc-shaped basin is home to nearly half the country\u2019s population, and the river that feeds it provides Egypt with 90 percent of its water needs.But climbing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}