President Abdel Fattah El Sisi gave on Thursday 5/5/2016 the go-ahead for the wheat harvest in the new 1.5-million-feddan reclamation project in Sahel el-Ghab in the New Valley.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi and a number of statesmen attended the ceremony that began with the recitation of verses of the holy Quran.

Addressing the ceremony, Prime Minister Ismail Sherif paid tribute to the Armed Forces Engineering Authority and all national companies that contributed to this great accomplishment.

This ceremony coincides with the country's celebrations of Sinai Liberation Day, Coptic Easter and Israa and Miraj, a coincidence reflecting the cohesion of Egyptian people who share one fate and the same goals, he said.

Addressing Sisi, Ismail said "four months ago, this great project (1.5-million-feddan reclamation project) was launched and now we come here to witness the wheat harvest in this project", stressing that this accomplishment testifies to the strong will of Egyptians.

This project provides a nucleus of the new Egyptian countryside and the start of getting Egyptians out of the narrow Nile valley, the premier said.

The project aims at filling the food gap, rationalizing food imports and setting up new agricultural communities that provide thousands of jobs to young people, Ismail said.

Today's celebration is just the start of launching a number of projects within the coming days in the fields of housing, drainage, petrochemical and electricity domains, he said.

Agriculture Minister Essam Fayed said "we are about to start the wheat harvest season, the fruit of a giant development project aiming at providing jobs to young people, increasing Egypt's farmland and making the best exploitation of desert areas".

He cited previous statements by Sisi in which he said the aim of 1.5-million-feddan project is to set up new communities in a number of governorates, especially the Upper Egyptian ones.

Out of the total 1.5-million-feddan, the project in Farafra covers 280,000 feddans cultivated by field crops (70%) and horticultural crops (30%), the minister said.

The 1.5-million-feddan project in Farafra is an ambitious developmental, agricultural and industrial project aiming at redistributing the population and coping with the population growth for the coming 14 years expected at 40 million, Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Mohamed Abdel Aati said.

The Irrigation Ministry has a large program to develop water as 20 billion cubic meters are being recycled to fulfill the rising demand, Abdel Aati said.

He noted that another program aims to improve irrigation at new lands to save every possible drop of water.

About 11.5% of the 1.5-million-feddan project depends on surface and recycled water, while the rest on underground water, he said.

The project will be dependent on renewable energy, such solar energy, he added.