For about six weeks from mid-May every year, grapes from the Shorouk farm in the Egyptian desert fill a gap on the shelves of European supermarkets waiting for southern European growers to begin sending grapes their way.

Shorouk is one of many modern farms in the re-claimed lands of the West Delta desert region driving a boom in Egyptian agricultural exports that reached $1.5bn (€955m, £750m) in 2007, up some 55 per cent over the previous year.