Not Your Momma's Desert

My class went on field trip today to check out farmlands carved into (and out of) the desert. Since there's only so much naturally arable land in Egypt, farmers and developers have long looked to the desert for a solution to the land shortage. It takes a lot of water, but as we saw, it is possible to grow many-the-crop in land that was previously empty of any vegetation.

Here are some greenhouses in which AUC-led farming masterminds meld hearty desert-friendly roots to citrus and mango-bearing cuttings to make intensely productive fruit trees.

You can see what the land looks like when left untouched in the foreground.

We also visited a seven acre wood. It's strange to walk under trees and on ground brush in the Sahara, although the trees' grid structure belies their artificial nature.




The growth is very green in places, thanks to some well water, but mostly to Nile waters pumped in along feeder canals.

They even practice organic faming way out yonder (it's a two hour drive from Cairo), and we sampled tasty, PC carrots over lunch.

This is certainly not what I think of when pondering the word "desert." But can it really still be called desert when it's been artificially green-ed?