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The savageness of the government and the looting of the poor; for how long would this remain?
While the ruling party is proud of its achievements and economic gains in its annual conference, it is oblivious to the negative effects of economic policies that led to the displacement of millions of workers and small farmers in Egypt. At the same time, the party's government, which represents the interests of businessmen and landowners, issues arbitrary decisions that contribute to the further deterioration of the situation of small farmers. These government policies, in the fields of agriculture, lead to different consequences on the lives of people in the countryside, where the most notable evident is that Egypt has lost more than a million acres of the finest agricultural land by building on them. Also, hub hazard policies in the field of irrigation of water led to the waste of tens of thousands of acres of agriculture due to lack of water, in addition to the negative effects due to irrigation of some lands with sewage and industrial wastewater, the use of fake pesticides in agricultural production, and ignoring the negative effects of such policies on the social and economic rights for small farmers. The savageness of the country decision-makers increases by issuing new decisions against the farmers of the agrarian reform and the endowments. These institutions increase the rental value of the land against the farmers of the State Land, for example, the endowment has expelled the peasants from the rented lands, and sold them to senior officials and staff; sometimes by pursuit and trickery means or by pressuring them to abandon agriculture, especially after it has been raised the rental value against farmers who rented charitable and civil endowment lands.
Many of the tenants of agricultural land in the village of Al-Naghamish, Dar El-Salam, Sohag, have submitted complaints to the Center of the Earth, screaming from the endowment department continuous raise of the rental value of land, attached to a basin, with an area of approximately 190 Fadden, where it was rented to about 300 families for 24 pounds per year, then by 300 pounds, then 400 pounds, then to 600 pounds, then to 800 pounds and then to 1100 pounds a year. But, then, the number soared to 1700 pounds per annum, where during the current year, the number has increased to 3400 pounds per acre, in year. All this happened during the last ten years. This lease contract is not fair, especially in light of low values of agricultural crops, like wheat, corn and alfalfa, in addition to the high requirements needed for agricultural production. In such an increase, farmers will be forced to abandon their lands because of their inability to pay the high amount rental value, so the Endowment would sale and trade with the land, in a continuation of the policy of the trade of Land, as a part of the policy of the Government that is addicted to violate the rights of small farmers and loot their efforts and wealth. The Center believes that these policies contradict with the adopted policies nowadays in the world, which support the rights of small farmers and ensures the support and drop off their debts, to avoid the negative effects of economic crisis, which led to lower prices of most agricultural crops for more than 30%. But the Egyptian government, instead of supporting farmers and contribute to stop their displacement, it contributes in looting money and efforts of farmers to increase the wealth of corrupt businessmen and its various institutions.
And unfortunately, the return of any agricultural acres, after deducting the costs, cannot provide the amount of rent which the State acquires from small farmers. The center is preparing an appeal on behalf of small farmers, tenants of the agricultural land of the State, to stop the rent increases every year, and it asks for the adoption of standards to ensure a fair return for farmers and a profit that is enough for livings.
Thus, the Center has submitted the complaints of farmers to the Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture and head of the Egyptian Endowment Authority, to intervene and quickly determine the values of fair rent for farmers, which commensurate with the high price of agricultural inputs, water and the cost of living, with protecting them from the savageness of the blind free market, which considers poor farmers only as a market for trading in rights. The center hopes that ministers would ensure the rights of peasants in possession of agricultural land, and in living, in safety.
For more information, please contact the Center