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Egypt’s Greenhouse Push: Army-Driven Hydroponics vs Morocco’s Desalination Boom · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited.
• 0:09
  And today's topic is, I read an article that was about how Egypt was trying
• 0:15
  to compete with Morocco for greenhouse growing and fresh produce production in the coming years.
• 0:23
  And I've talked about Morocco in the past and said, you know,
• 0:26
  they've got vast quantities of desalination plants being created that will take them, you know,
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  a factor of like 10 or 100 times greater desalinated water production than say
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  USA or even the UAE and countries like that.
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  So Morocco massively increasing their water production because that's the limiting factor.
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  The water coming down from the Atlas Mountains is not enough.
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  They're not going off desalination plants. Not sure how they're.
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  Power all those desalination plants, whether that's going to be fossil fuels
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  or some solar power, but we wait to see.
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  But Egypt wants to compete with them. And they normally, the horticulture in
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  Egypt is very field-based production.
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  Obviously, the fresh water from the Nile is the feedstock for that.
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  And so they're very big in production of crops like onions and potatoes,
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  but they want to get into the fresh produce sector and they want to get into
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  the greenhouse sector. So they're building very large-scale greenhouses.
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  And what was surprising about this was that it was
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  actually the army that was building these
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  and constructing these and i was thinking what the army getting involved in
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  food so i asked chat gpt i said what's
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  the what does the egyptian army have to do with food production in egypt it
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  turns out the egyptian army is massive when it comes to food production for
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  a sort of non-dictatorship non-authoritarian well you might you might claim
• 1:49
  that egypt is but some people might but human rights watch and things like that.
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  But for what is considered a democracy, the army, the military is massively
• 1:58
  involved in food production.
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  And to the point where some of the farmers are complaining, like they're massively
• 2:05
  involved in fish farming.
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  And they've been accused of putting other smaller fish farms out of business.
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  And they're building massive amounts of greenhouses as well.
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  It's not just to feed the army, it's for production as well.
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  And so they're involved in the construction and the running of these national
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  projects, 1,000 hectares of greenhouse for national projects.
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  And obviously they're involved in the supply chain for the raw materials and
• 2:35
  fertilizers and things like this. So that's really interesting.
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  And they're getting into berries as well, so strawberries and blueberries.
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  Blueberries are massive in Morocco, so Egypt wants a slice of that pie as well.
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  So large-scale hydroponic plants,
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  greenhouses are being set up and you can understand why the the land next to
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  the Nile is being developed and the land further away from the Nile is not as
• 2:59
  conducive for food production so if you can go in hydroponics soilless cultivation
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  then that could be winner winner chicken dinner you just need to pipe the water
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  from the Nile to that land.
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  Other countries where the army and
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  the military is involved in food production obviously it's apart
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  from Egypt which is probably the only democracy where
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  that is the case maybe pakistan north korea
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  is the obvious one where the armory involved in every you
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  know the military involved in everything of everyday life from in
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  food production so everything that goes runs
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  through the junta the military junta mayanmar now
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  that was a democracy gone back to a military
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  junta as well isn't it that's the word you call it
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  and obviously involved in
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  the supply a lot of backhanders and things like this but
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  not as much as egypt egypt even though it's not an authoritarian
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  regime is let it's more in military more involved
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  in food production in egypt than they are in mayanmar and pakistan
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  as well the military have a much higher role
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  in everyday society as well it's not just food production in places like pakistan
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  and mayanmar and hence the power of the military in places like egypt and pakistan
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  hence why you often get coups because there's a lot of money going through the
• 4:13
  military and there's a lot of influence and power in the military.
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  So more than say in the UK where if the army tried to get involved in food production,
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  then they would be laughed out of town.
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  They can only just sort of put on some temporary work
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  fire engines when there's a fire service, fire engine strike,
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  they certainly couldn't get involved in food production.
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  Whereas in places like Egypt, the army can bake a million loaves a day.
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  That's their capacity in food production, which is crazy, isn't it?
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  And Egypt is obviously a massive population, one of the world's biggest wheat importers.
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  It's got to feed around 70 million people and the army is involved in that.
• 4:57
  So yeah, I think that's really interesting.
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  If you know of other countries where the army is involved in food production, then let me know.
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  Often it can be at the detriment to the wider population. So like in Myanmar,
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  because of the money involved, it can be like pushing farmers out of land and
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  planting rubber plantations for non-food, for exports, which gain a dollar income to the country.
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  But obviously the local population suffer then because their local food production is disrupted.
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  And then obviously mega projects in these countries are often involved,
• 5:34
  have military involvement.
• 5:37
  So yes, let me know if you're in place like, it'd be interesting to know,
• 5:43
  I mean, I've been to China, I've not seen any military involvement in the agriculture
• 5:47
  there. Cuba, even though that's communist.
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  Is they have the organoponics which is
• 5:54
  not really hydroponics but yeah the sort of sugarcane
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  production i would imagine has some sort of military involvement but i'm
• 6:01
  not an expert on that so i'm not going to talk about that if you know let me know
• 6:04
  and i'm more than happy to do a follow-up the military involvement in hydroponics
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  it's really interesting all right if you found it interesting please do
• 6:10
  like this podcast and give it a review on apple podcasts
• 6:14
  because it helps share the word of hydroponics with the wider community if you
• 6:17
  are not on apple don't leave a podcast review because it doesn't really help
• 6:21
  but just make sure you follow the podcast and check out utreema.co.uk whether
• 6:25
  you are a military general or a guerrilla soldier or a,
• 6:31
  peace-loving atheist peacenik anti-war person then check out utreema.co.uk for all your fertilizers,
• 6:43
  yeah oh we did talk about israel didn't we
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  in the past and how the gazar 585 were burning greenhouses down in in southern
• 6:51
  gaza funded by icl the fertilizer company but yeah we're not covering that one
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  again because i don't want another solicitor's letter from icl all right thanks
• 7:00
  very much for listening i'll speak to you tomorrow for another podcast of hydroponics daily.