LAND-at-scale Egypt Participatory Land-Use Consolidation for Climate Resilience and Inclusive Business Models

Agriculture in Egypt, in particular in Upper Egypt, is characterised by smallholder farming. With a growing population (now 109 million people) and 4% of land being cultivatable concentrated along the Nile River, land fragmentation poses a substantial challenge, exacerbated by constrained land and water resources. This fragmentation results in the subdivision of agricultural land into smaller, irregular parcels, leading to the inability to carry out sustainable crop management, including pest control and efficient water use. Land fragmentation is one of the most important structural obstacles in organising agricultural production services and applying collective agricultural rotation, which are a necessary conditions for conserving natural resources and increasing efficiency. Furthermore, it is a major obstacle to the development of organised value chains and marketing systems. Thus, land fragmentation substantially undermines the productivity and income of smallholder farmers.

The project will aim to reduce land fragmentation through participatory land use consolidation for climate resilience and inclusive business models, to increase the productivity and income of smallholder farmers, and to strengthen the institutional capacity of key institutions on land governance aspects. 

Four key strategies will be employed:

• Assessing the suitability and applicability of various land-use consolidation tools including the development of inclusive business models;
• Awareness raising, mobilizing communities, and strengthening capacities at the local, governorate, and national levels; 
• Piloting land-use consolidation models, focusing on (1) crop consolidation and private sector engagement and (2) land-use consolidation tailored for climate adaptation including demonstration plots;
• Facilitating learning, knowledge dissemination, and policy advocacy in collaboration with the government to enable scaling up of successful practices.

LAND-at-scale is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by the Netherlands Enterprise and Development Agency (RVO). The project in Egypt is supported with 1.485.000 Euros. To stay updated on this LAND-at-scale project and others, please sign up(link is external)(link is external) for our quarterly newsletter.