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The white gold is the symbol of grief in the Egyptian countryside Cotton harvest seasons ...... Seasons of ruined homes The cotton that is in the homes and fields ..... who will buy it?
The complaints of the cotton farmers increased during the recent period. Dozens of complaints from Behera, Qaliubia, Fayyoum, Minya and Beni Suef state that: "The circumstances and conditions have changed. The cotton harvest season, which was the season of marriage and repaying debts and joy, has now become a symbol of grief. After harvesting the cotton, the farmers carry it to their homes inside plastic sacks, because of the disappearance of the cotton circles – circles for buying cotton - and then try to cell it at cost prices, after remaining in the field for more than seven months. "
The farmers assert that the cotton trade in Egypt was dependent on the seeds merchant and the stock exchange broker, and that there were rules that governed the work of those people in the past. But after the state’s adoption of the free market policies, a lot of problems have emerged, and accumulated due to neglect of the state and its withdrawal from the provision of care and services. Some spinning factories and cotton gins have turned into traders. In the last period the state policies reduced the area of cotton cultivated land to 585 thousand acres only. And the astonishing thing is that the minister says that the cotton file is poorly managed and faces many problems that make it unable to compete in the world markets. It is astonishing because the minister had forgotten that he is responsible for these problems and must plan, through his ministry of agriculture, to solve the problem and apply the rules of good and fair governance to the cotton file in order to protect our agriculture wealth and the rights of farmers.
On the other hand, and at the same time that governments, especially those of the north states, are dealing with caution with genetically modified products and seeds, by imposing stringent control on the circulation and production of seeds, in order to address the problems and risks arising from genetically modified production, the minister surprises us by proposing a project that allows the private sector to produce cotton seeds, and gives them the power to circulate these seeds through the ministry!! Which will market the seeds of traders and companies and distribute them on the farmers without supervision controls. And under the spread of corruption the LCHR fears the destruction of the Egyptian cotton seed. And instead of adopting the regulations and controls necessary for the production of natural Egyptian cotton seeds, which is famous for its high quality and good reputation, and which is considered a national heritage that belongs to successive generations of Egyptians, the ministry throws away our natural seeds.
Turning a blind eye to the lack of cotton cultivated areas and the decline in production is a sabotage to the national economy, because of the serious impacts of this on the textile sector or on the production of oil, which amounted to only 10% of the total domestic consumption.
The LCHR presents the complaints of the Egyptian farmers to the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Trade and Investment, and the Prime Minister, asking them to announce the government's plan to deal with the problems of production and marketing of cotton by announcing a firm price for the sale of the crop before its planting, on the condition that this price covers production costs and ensures a profit margin for the farmer, like the wheat and corn crops. The plan should also include the development of spinning and weaving factories in terms of management and machinery to produce yarn extracted from the high level long-staple Egyptian cotton in order to accommodate for all of our Egyptian production and in order to provide job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of workers, and to allow farmers to form their own independent associations and unions, to defend their interests and to enable them to compete in fairness and equality with other farmers in the global markets, and to create social balance between small farmers, traders, big landlords and companies, and to provide agricultural production requirements at cost prices. It also demands that the government plan includes compensation and support for farmers for their losses due to the cultivation of the cotton crop this year pursuant to the rules of free and equal competition between them and the farmers of the north states, particularly the American farmers, and to not force the farmers of the agriculture reform associations to grow cotton without compensating them for their loss compared with growing other crops in order to ensure the values of equality and justice and to protect the Egyptian Agriculture and the rights of farmers to safe agriculture, and a decent life.
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