Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has directed the government to maintain close follow up of efforts to protect farmlands against illegal seizures and encroachments, stressing that such efforts are key to the preservation of the assets and rights of the state and the people.
The directives to this effect came in the course of meeting that President Sisi called on Monday with senior officials to review the progress of efforts to maintain and protect agricultural lands, Presidency Spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said.
Attending the meeting were Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli, Minister of the Interior Mahmoud Tawfik, Agriculture and Land Reclamation Minister al-Sayed al-Quseir and Local Development Minister Gen Hisham Amna. Kafr el-Sheikh Governor Gamal Zaki and Beheira Vice-Governor Nihad Balbaa were also present at the meeting.
During the meeting, President Sisi was briefed on the latest scene of efforts to maintain and protect farmlands against acts of illegal seizure and encroachment, Spokesman Fahmy said, adding that the briefings also covered the challenges that the apparatuses concerned face and proposed ways of overcoming such challenges.
In light of the briefings, President Sisi gave directives to the government to closely and meticulously follow up these efforts and to decisively confront any illegal act of seizing or encroaching upon farm lands, Spokesman Fahmy said.
While giving these directives, the President explained that efforts to protect the country’s area of agricultural lands contribute to the achievement of the state’s economic and developmental goals, in addition to preserving the assets and rights of the state and the people, Spokesman Fahmy said.
On Monday’s meeting came just one day after President Sisi had conferred with the prime minister and some Cabinet ministers for a consideration of the progress of action to implement a number of major agricultural and land reclamation projects.
Efforts to implement these projects, President Sisi noted in remarks during Sunday’s meeting, are part of the state’s plan to deal with the chronic imbalance between the country’s limitedness of farmlands and its total geographical area.
The president also stressed that the state’s overall plan for increasing agricultural productivity aims to achieve a considerable leap in the state’s capability to realise food security for the people, in addition to boosting the country’s export potentials.
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