The policies and practice of British colonial rule regarding agriculture in lower Egypt 1882-1922
Date
2011-08-29
Authors
Chondoka, Yizenge Adorn
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Abstract
This study examines British policy towards Egyptian farmers in Lower Egypt. It looks at the way the agricultural policy was formulated,implemented and its results over the time period 1882 to 1922 the time when Britain ruled Egypt. On the whole, the thesis has revealed that expansions in agriculture and markets in Egypt depended on government technical assistance to the fellaheen. The direction of expansions were dictated to a large extent by the
demands of the metropolitan industries requiring raw materials such as cotton. Thus with the coming of government technical assistance,the long-established intensive agriculture dependence on the flood
irrigation only came to an end. Perennial irrigation was improved and extended to all parts of Lower Egypt making it possible to increase cropland and grow more of the crop, particularly cotton, demanded by the British factory owners.In this work it is shown how government technical assistance to
the fellaheen established the channels for interaction between traditional non-capitalist modes of production and an industrial capitalist mode of production, unfavourably affecting the peasants, whose
surplus was externalised to the metropole. Changes which accompanied the transformation of the rural society were radical and far-reaching.Differentiation among the fellaheen occurred, resulting in few of them
becoming rich through the acquisition of land and a majority becoming landless and jobless. The landed fellaheen adopted new techniques of farming like the use of crop rotation and the growing of more than one crop per year on the same land. This, on average, increased their agricultural
income. Agriculture was therefore more scientific than in the pre
British er.a, especially with the use of chemical fertilizers from the turn of the century onwards.Capital penetration into the rural economy had in the initial
stages a negative effect: that of creating indebtedness among the fellaheen.But the government took measures to rescue the heavily indebted farmers from their predicament. The firm incorporation of the fellaheen into the export-oriented economy led to a new relationship between the
demand for Egyptian cotton by the textile owners in Britain on one hand,and the production levels of cotton and foodcrops on the other. Thus there was, for economic reasons, more concentration on the production of cotton by the fellaheen than on the production of foodcrops for
export, to the extent that food imports of grain commenced at the turn of the century, a feature that was uncommon in the pre-British era.The other far-reaching change was that brought about by the improvements in the perennial irrigation. The quality of life of the people in the
countryside improved resulting in the population almost doubling during the forty years of British rule in Egypt. However, not all the rural people benefitted from perennial irrigation. Some peasants' lives
improved during this period while other peasants were increasingly marginalized. This had its own consequences of unemployment in the country, and was aggravated by the policy of non-industrialization initiated by Lord Cromer.
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Agriculture- -Egypt , Agriculture