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Land Center issues its new report “Farmers’ problems in the rural Egypt 2003”
Land Center for Human Rights issues its annual report around farmers’ problems entitled “farmers’ problems in the rural Egypt 2003” - land and farmer series - issue no. 25. The report reviews farmers’ conditions in the Egyptian countryside throughout 2003 by examining their conditions in eight villages. The initiative chapter draws a picture for conditions of farmers, land and food in Egypt after six years for the implementation of law 96/1992 accompanied by the application of the economic reform in the agrarian field. The report reveals the failure of these policies to improve farmers’ conditions; on the contrary, it contributes to several crises concerning food, insufficiency of agricultural resources, increasing the prices of fertilizers and seeds and importing decayed agrarian staff. The report tries to highlight the governmental attitude towards burdening the citizens with the negative impacts of these policies (e.g. increasing the costs of drinking water that riches 1 pound/m³). This chapter discusses the factors that led to falldown of some strategic crops as cotton as a result to the failure of the governmental authorities to resist the spread of the white fly that pushes farmers to stop cultivating cotton because of decreasing the feden production from 10 kintar (weight unit) to only 4 that led to increasing the losses to reach 9 millions. The same misery is repeated in other crops as rice as sugar cane.
The report mentions to conditions of food in Egypt highlighting the governmental failure to face the alimentary gap especially the great gap between production and consumption of wheat. Egypt consumes about 13 million tons while it produce only 6 million tons that increases the crisis of insufficiency of bread in addition to the problem of bad storage of wheat in the governmental mills. The report reveals the incorrectness of the declaration of the prime minister regarding the increase of the agrarian area estimated with 10 millions fedens that the report asserts that it doesn’t exceed than 7.5 millions fedens.
The first chapter of the report entitled “violence of farmers and the land” reviews some violent accidents that the Egyptian countryside witnessed throughout 2003. The report monitors 37 violent accidents occurred for various reasons as disputes for possession, borders and irrigation. Such violence led to 30 dead, 215 injured and 322 arrested classified as follows:
Number of accidents Killed Injured Arrested
Disputes for possession 18 14 89 143
Disputes for borders 12 11 54 88
Disputes for irrigation 8 5 72 92
The second chapter entitled “farmers’ problems with Developing and Agricultural Credit Bank (DACB)” monitors the corruption of the bank’s employees that abuse the farmers’ illiteracy to forge the bank’s documents. It reviews the contradiction between the obstacles that small-scale farmers face during their dealing with the bank and the facilities that the rich people receive that pushes farmers to stop dealing with the bank in addition to abusing the public money.
The third chapter discusses farmers’ problems with different institutions varied as follows:
- 80% with the governmental institutions.
- 14% with the private sector (mafia of lands, traders of black markets and owners of factories)
- 6% with the public sector (environmental pollution and non-existence of fertilizers)
The fourth chapter monitors farmers’ problems concerning housing that farmers’ right to adequate housing is violated represented in absence of services in addition to subvert decision for their houses. The problems of farmers’ right to housing differ according to its percentage of occurrence [subvert houses (52%) - forced eviction (28.5%) - absence of services (14%) - absence of alternative housing (4.6%)].
The fifth chapter reviews farmers’ problems concerning irrigating water that was the most important problem that farmers faced during 2003 that led to destruction of many crops and wasting thousands fedens. E.g. the losses of sugar cane in Luxur province reached 10 millions pounds in addition to destruction of 64 thousand fedens in provinces of Kafer el Sheik and Dakahlya. Moreover, when farmers tried to struggle against these problems, the irrigation departments trap them by filling minutes and imposing fines against them.
The sixth chapter highlights problems of new graduates in the new lands with ministry of irrigation (47%) and DACB (21%). These problems varied between non-existence of drinking water, electricity and hospitals inside villages of new graduates. Moreover, those youth were arrested for their disability to pay off their debts to the bank because of crops’ destruction.
The seventh chapter discusses farmers’ problems concerning services that most of rural population suffer from absence of clean drinking water in addition to increasing the costs of water despite increasing the lost water estimated with 50% annually (70650000 LE) as a result for rareness of maintenance processes for water nets. This part monitors the problems of sewerage revealing that more than 95% of villages in Egypt have no sewerage that spreads diseases and epidemics in the Egyptian countryside. It mentions to the bad conditions of hospitals in the countryside that the year of 2003 witnessed the disaster of Wadi el Mostasde fever (type of fever) that led to death of 55 and injury of tens farmers in Kafer el Sheik province resulted from the experiments of the ministry of agriculture. The reports mentions to the insufficiency of the medical equipments in the hospitals.
The eights chapter reviews some results and recommendations that are important for improving farmers’ conditions in the countryside:
- Stop evicting farmers from the State’s possessions.
- Applying supervision over seeds and pesticides.
- Caring with irrigation projects.
- Determining the period of tenancy (five years).
- Determining the rental of ac feden (not more than 1000 LE).
- Providing villages with infrastructure services.
The center will be pleased with your remarks and comments on our report to be more expressive for the current problems in the Egyptian countryside.