A joint development project in Aswan has expanded into a second phase with EGP 120m in funding to integrate smallholder farmers into Egypt’s formal financial system, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation announced on Sunday. The “Transforming the Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers” project, a collaboration between the CBE, the banking sector, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), aims to improve economic livelihoods through modern irrigation and financial literacy. The second phase, which began in January 2025 and runs through December 2026, targets 11 new villages following a first phase that the CBE says increased farmer revenues by 35%. Data from the project’s first phase, which ran from January 2021 to June 2022, showed that 85,000 smallholder farmers benefited from the consolidation and development of 8,500 feddans. Minister Alaa Farouk described smallholder farmers as the cornerstone of food security and a key pillar of the national prospect for the agricultural sector.

Source: Daily News Egypt January 11, 2026 16:28 UTC