DESERT FARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 14

DESERT FARMS

COLONISATION IN LIBYA “TRIUMPH OF ORGANISATION” Marshal Balbo. Governor of Libya, recently concluded a tour of the Ls new villages of Libya in which 20,000 Italian peasants have been settled on land which has hitherto been completely unproductive. He piloted nis own aeroplane. . , . What I have seen in his company during the tour convinces me that tne first stage of Italy’s experiment in massed emigration has been an unqualified success (says a special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, London). It has been a triumph of organisation in face of natural difficultios. • Time alone will test the economic soundiiess of a scheme which, .in the next year, will have transplanted 100,000 Italians to Libya. Marshal Balbo has reason to be satisfied with his staff work. The peasants have been taken from their homes in Italy and set down on the doorsteps of 1800 concrete houses m Africa, exactly according to the planned time table. Only here and there did a breakdown hold up the desert convoys for a few hours. Farms on Sand The character of the land being colonised varies enormously. Near Tripoli the irrigated farms are merely watered sand, practically at sea level. Five hundred miles away, in Cyrenaica, nearly 2000 feet above sea level, the Italian peasants are ploughing up again the old red soil which once grew corn for the Romans. In between are low lands, irrigated by artesian wells, where experimental farms established less than ttvo years ago are now growing olives, vines, cotton, oranges and even cauliflowers, with good results. On the heavier soil success is assured. If any of the new farms fail to pay, they will be those around Tr The Colonists are entering their new life in the best spirit. Most of them have come to Libya without high hopes, but because they found it impossible to make a living in Italy. They have been told that the Government, while, keeping a paternal eye on their welfare, will not spoonfeed them. They must stand on their own feet'as Independent farmers. If they fail they will be shipped back to Italy again.