Whether you are already growing your own food, or aspiring to grow you own food like me, you must have suffered the same frustration I have at the dearth of online material for urban, vertical or roof-top gardening relevant to Egypt's climatic and infrastructural environment. There are great projects and resources out there that if its your first time at this can be foreboding and threatening and would quickly lead you to abandon the project of growing some tomatoes on your roof, because you don't know how to apply that information to the very specific conditions pertaining to your situation.
There are some people out there I am sure who are growing their own food in Egypt or similar climates, but I can't seem to find them at the tip of my fingers and I'm sure others out there have also encountered the same problem.
The idea behind this project came through several conversations with multiple people who have felt that they just did not know how or where to start. We all agreed that food, both in quantity and quality was an issue of concern. Constraints on access to land and water posed the biggest threats to people wanting to produce their own food. The issue was current and pressing, but we were not sure how to start growing our own food or any food, or even how to get others to start. So we put our heads together and came to the conclusion what better way to do this than through an individual-based, self-motivated, but connected group of individuals who would each embark on a journey and process of experimentation on different low-cost, chemical-free, water-efficient, land-free methods for the production of their own food. Most importantly, this group of individuals would share this information with others.
By creating a space for seasoned and aspiring urban, roof-top and vertical farmers in Egypt we could expand each others' knowledge and create a dynamic knowledge-base that anyone could have access to or even expand on.
Landless food production is faced with unique obstacles that the different experiences of different people can really help to overcome. So whether you want to become self-sufficient, or you just want to grow some aubergines outside your bedroom window, why do that alone, when others can follow your example and learn from your experience as you try and figure out what to do and how to solve the different challenges you face.
Internet penetrability in Egypt is not ideal for the spread of this project across socioeconomic classes using the internet, which is the ultimate goal of the Egyptian Food Sovereignty Project. But as of now, there is very little experiential data on land-free food production in Egypt so as this project grows the knowledge generated through participants' food diaries can be used to inform projects that address specific areas and classes.
The information generated by this project is considered open-access and is free to be used by anyone. Because this will provide an extensive database of knowledge on farming some people may be tempted to use this information for material gain. This information is intended to inform people and to disseminate knowledge so different people are able to own and control fully or partially their access to chemical-free food. Any use of this information for the accumulation of wealth through monopolizing information will automatically be considered an infringement of a social contract and will be followed by a strong campaign of public and professional defamation.