World Report

With limited cultivable land, agriculture contributes just 7 percent to Libya’s economy

ith more than 95 percent of the country desert and a cultivable area of just 1.2 percent of its total area, Libya’s opportunities for agriculture are severely limited.

There are no surface lakes or natural rivers, and only the coastal areas – where the vast majority of the population lives – have sufficient rainfall to allow farming. More than 80 percent of agriculture is on the high coastal plateau in the northeast and the coastal plain in the northwest.

Agriculture employs around 17 percent of the workforce and contributes just 7 percent to GDP. Olives, dates, almonds, and some wheat and barley are grown, and sheep and goats are raised, but 75 percent of the food needed to feed the people is imported. Libya has substantial fishing resources, however, and agreements for joint development of fishing have been signed with several countries, including Tunisia and Spain.

Multi-billion dollar project will enable new areas to be used for cultivation

Before the discovery of oil in the 1950s drew people away from the land into the urban areas, Libya was a food exporter, and over the last 20 years attempts have been made to develop the agricultural sector.

The best hope for improved production and greater self-sufficiency in food comes from a remarkable project to irrigate thousands of acres of land using water stored in huge natural aquifers deep below the desert sands.
One of the biggest engineering schemes in the world, the Great Man-Made River Project taps into more than 120,000 cubic kilometres of pure, fresh water in the south and southeast of the country and carries it over hundreds of kilometres through a network of huge pipelines to cities and agricultural areas in the north.

The Great Man-Made River Project is one the world’s largest engineering schemes

Twenty years after it was begun, the project’s first two phases have been completed, and phase III to supply the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirt and other settlements is in the final stages. So far around £7 billion has been spent and the final bill is expected to total more than £14 billion.

When completed, the network will transfer 6.5 million cubic metres of water daily. The project has already significantly increased the amount of land available for farming. Around 70 percent of the water is used for agriculture and the rest for domestic consumption.

The fourth of five planned phases, which will supply water to Zwara and the western cities of Libya, includes the provision of an aquifer which will be shared by Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. “All three countries are working jointly to determine the utilisation of the aquifer,” says Abdul Majid M. Elgaoud, Secretary of the Management and Implementation Authority for the project. “We will begin implementing this phase this year and expect it to be complete in the next four years.”