Un ingénieur égyptien et des experts de l'Icarda et des paysans mettent au point en Egypte un semoir pour semis sur planche sur-élevées (raised-bed) dans les zones du delta du Nil irriguées par submersion.
Cet engin est intéressant en Algérie dans les zones de culture avec épandage de crues, comme dans la steppe avec les ouvrages du HCDS. Voir ces 2 vidéos du HCDS.
Hcds- Epandage des eaux de crue - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pHJnvrG6_s
L'exemple de la famille Harane à El Guedid (Djelfa):
https://youtu.be/_C4pW4g_xNY
Prestigious
award from JIRCAS for ICARDA scientist
Photo: Dr. Atef
Swelam with the raised-bed machine.
Dr Atef
Swelam, an irrigation scientist at ICARDA and coordinator of the Nile
Delta project has been selected for the prestigious ‘Japan
International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers 2015’. This
award recognizes the outstanding performance and achievements in
research and development that leads to future technological
innovation in agriculture, forestry, fisheries or related industries
for a developing area and shows great promise. Dr. Swelam will
receive the award on October 27, 2015, at a ceremony at the U Thant
International Conference Hall, United Nations University in Tokyo,
Japan. This award recognizes Dr. Swelam’s contributions in the
development of a cost-effective raised-bed machine for small-scale
farms to improve land and water productivity in the Nile Delta of
Egypt.
‘We at
ICARDA are very proud of this major achievement. This prestigious
award is important to motivate young scientists to address the
challenges in agriculture to increase food production for the growing
world population and to reduce extreme hunger and malnutrition that
at least 800,000 million people are facing mostly in the developing
world,’ said ICARDA’s Director General Dr. Mahmoud Solh.
The
cost-effective raised-bed machine for small-sized plots was innovated
in Egypt with the goal of making land preparing and sowing on
raised-bed convenient for the resource-poor smallholders in Nile
Delta, so as to encourage water and land conservation practices in
the intensively farmed region. The machine is fashioned after a
prototype tested and refined through trials on wheat fields with
participating farmers. The resulting technology offers farming
accuracy and allows sowing of different crops with easy maintenance
and adjustable seed rates. After long-term calibration and validation
of the new prototype, the technology has been adopted and is being
scaled out with a local manufacturer.
Mechanized
raised-bed planting has demonstrated multiple benefits on wheat,
maize and sugarbeet – water savings, greater efficiency in
agricultural practices, and increased crop yields. It has also
reduced waterlogging with better drainage of excess water from the
active root zone of the crop. These excellent results have promoted
the adoption of mechanized raised-bed technology in cultivated wheat
areas of Egypt from 1,670 hectares to a phenomenal 45,000 hectares
over three years (2011-2014).
The
uptake of mechanized raised-bed planting is spreading all over Egypt,
as well as to other countries in the region such as Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Uzbekistan and Sudan. The
machine is being used in a flexible manner, both for intensive crops
(such as wheat, berseem and rice) and interspaced crops (such as
corn, sugarbeet and faba bean).
This
newly developed and locally manufactured raised-bed machine has
enabled the farmers to achieve remarkable results that include around
25% saving in applied water, around 50% reduction in seed rate,
around 25% decrease in farming cost, around 30% increase in
fertilizer use efficiency, and around 15-25% increase in crops
yields.
Along
with benefiting farmers, this cost-effective raised-bed machine for
small-scale farms can provide a good opportunity for local investment
and employment for fresh graduates because of the great potential of
raised-bed planting system.