Publisher's Synopsis
Agriculture is at the centre of Egypt's economy, society and politics. This volume on Egyptian agriculture and rural society combines new local research with national rural policy analysis. In particular, it explores the impact of market liberalization policies introduced under pressure from the World Bank, IMF and USAID, and especially of Law 96 of 1992 which fundamentally reversed the gains tenant farmers had obtained under Nasserist reforms nearly 40 years ago. The book examines the agribusiness strategy of the Egyptian Government and its goal of agricultural export-led growth; debates, policies and conflicts over access to water; the long history of conflict in Egypt's agricultural sector; and a series of original investigations into tenancy relations and the new 1992 tenancy law. This volume, authored by a team of Egyptian and Western scholars, provides a thoroughly documented and sharply analytical insight into how rural Egypt is paying a price of increasing poverty and immiseration for the neo-liberal economic policies being foisted on their country with the enthusiastic compliance of the Egyptian Government.
