We built farmland where there was none.
8,041 feddan over the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System. 354 km west of the Nile.
What this is
Drawn from blackfarms.kml · Production.csvas of Rev 1A working farm in Egypt's New Valley, operating since 2020. The boundary below is the surveyed polygon, not an estimate — eight corners, handed over and recorded.
| Fact | Value | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land | 8,041 feddan | Live | blackfarms.kml |
| Alfalfa harvested | 1,096.12 t | Live | Production.csv |
| Cuts recorded | 15 | Live | Production.csv |
| Team | 25 people | Live | HR record |
| Wells | — | Live | count unreconciled |
| Centre pivots | — | Live | count unreconciled |
Two figures are withheld pending verification. The well and pivot counts are not yet reconciled across the survey and the operating accounts — in Arabic the same word, بئر, labels both — so neither is published here. They appear when they are certain.
The water
Drawn from Nubian Sandstone Aquifer Systemas ofEvery litre here fell as rain before agriculture existed.
The New Valley sits over the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System — fossil water, not meaningfully recharging. Wells are drilled and operational. The farm converts an ancient asset into a present one, and the honest position is to say so rather than to print the word “sustainable” over a sunset.
Not yet published
Well depth, static water level and screened interval are not on file. The depth section ships when the drilling logs do — or as an explicitly labelled schematic. It will not be invented.
Where
Drawn from Dakhla, New Valley, Egyptas ofThree hundred and fifty-four kilometres from the river.
This is not Nile agriculture. The nearest channel is 354 km east; everything grown here is lifted from the aquifer beneath it.
The parcel
Drawn from blackfarms.kmlas of Rev 125.19189° N, 29.12435° E
- Corners surveyed
- 8
- Extent
- 6.25 × 7.73 km
- Hectares
- 3,378
- Sub-parcel “4000”
- 3,844 feddan
Surveyed KML · as of
The orbital record
Drawn from Sentinel-2 L2A · Earth Searchas of
39 frames, one per quarter, each the least-cloudy scene in its window. The parcel is bare desert in every frame from 2017-02-26 until the first irrigated circle appears in 2025.
B8 near-infrared, 10 m · greens ramp, fixed rescale 800-4000 across all frames · Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data, processed by BlackFarms.
Thirty-one frames of nothing, then a circle.
This parcel has been photographed from orbit every few days since 2017. Every frame from February 2017 to October 2024 shows bare desert. The first irrigated circle appears in March 2025.
Near-infrared, because bare Saharan sand and irrigated alfalfa are close to the maximum contrast this band can show. The stretch is identical on every frame — a floating one would animate the contrast rather than the land.
Exhibit I
What grows
Drawn from Production.csv · chart of accountsas of| Crop | العربية | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alfalfa | برسيم | Live | 1,096.12 t across 15 recorded cuts. |
| Wheat | قمح | Live | Six named varieties seeded. |
| Wheat straw | تبن قمح | Live | — |
| Azolla | ازولا | Live | Dedicated greenhouses; a consultant on payroll. |
| Date palm | نخيل | In development | Absent from the crop and asset vocabulary — to confirm. |
Mango is not listed at any status: it appears in no accounting record, no crop vocabulary and no survey layer.
Fifteen cuts across two pivots yielded 1,096 tonnes.
The livestock
Drawn from biological-asset accountsas ofSheep
أغنام
Count withheld
Poultry
دواجن
Count withheld
Duck
بط
Count withheld
Pigeon
حمام
Count withheld
Rabbit
أرانب
Count withheld
Five classes, recorded individually in the company's books down to breed and lineage. Current headcounts are withheld: the register on file is a founding cohort, and publishing it as a live number would be false.
The power
Drawn from fixed-asset registeras ofSolar array
منظومات الطاقة الشمسية
Inverter
انفراترات
Generator
مولدات كهربائية
Solar first, generators when the sun is down. The books carry solar systems, inverters and generators as separate asset classes, and a full fuel analysis.
Not yet published
The real solar-to-diesel split exists in the fuel analysis but has not been cleared for publication. The diagram ships without a ratio rather than with an invented one. The live site's claim of a “solar-diesel-wind hybrid” is wrong — there is no wind asset.
The people
Drawn from payroll recordas of
| Role | No. |
|---|---|
| Pivot technician | 7 |
| Field worker | 7 |
| Accountant | 2 |
| Cook | 2 |
| Sales & marketing | 2 |
| Agricultural engineer | 1 |
| General supervisor | 1 |
| Crop consultant | 1 |
| Azolla consultant | 1 |
| Animal production | 1 |
| Procurement | 1 |
| Driver | 1 |
The record
No entries
The field journal is not open. It ships when someone on the ground commits to posting to it — a journal whose last entry is eight months old undoes everything the other ten plates build.
Contact
Buyers, suppliers, partners.
For produce, supply, agronomy or distribution enquiries.
- Location
- Dakhla, New Valley, Egypt
- Coordinates
- 25.192° N, 29.124° E
- moe@blackfarms.co