Current status and prospective of farmers' unions and syndicates in Egypt - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2014

Current status and prospective of farmers' unions and syndicates in Egypt

Résumé

In Egypt, farming has traditionally been managed by families, even if the environment in which there were managed is organized and shaped by external decisions. It's only in 1908 that a social reformer, Omar Lofti, proposed a cooperative type of organization aiming at empowering small farmers with less than 5 feddans. However, the cooperative movement has really contributed to agricultural development in Egypt only after the revolution of 1952, when it played the role of parastatal organization. Consequently, around 150000 landless households became owners of small farms (5 feddans each). Yet, these organisations required the direct supervision of the Ministry of the Agriculture and the Agrarian Reform. The situation, first suitable, deteriorated in the mid-1970's. The executive authorities smashed the agricultural cooperative movement through several bureaucratic and security means in order to oppose to the endeavor adopted by the cooperative leaders to have an independent position vis-à-vis the agricultural policies. In the late 1980s, the liberalization of the economy didn't reverse the situation, and there was a tendency to rely more on NGOs rather than on cooperatives, and the authorities prohibited the forming of Unions and Syndicates in the agricultural sector as they feared anti-government collective actions. The revolution of January 2011 has given the population and farmers in particular, the opportunity to regain their own organizational tools: the official banning of unions was eliminated, and some leader farmers were supported to coordinate their efforts by establishing civil society organizations. The motives of the founders and the objectives of these organizations still need to be deeply analysed to check whether Egyptian farmers will be really able to take decisions and shape their own future.
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Dates et versions

hal-02164473 , version 1 (25-06-2019)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02164473 , version 1
  • MEDITAGRI : 34730

Citer

M.H.A. Nawar, T. Abdelhakim. Current status and prospective of farmers' unions and syndicates in Egypt. Abis S. (ed.). Mobilisations rurales en méditerranée, L'Harmattan, pp.81-93, 2014, Bibliothèque de l'IReMMO. ⟨hal-02164473⟩

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