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  • Title: [Migrations and rural capitalization in Egypt: changes in the peasant family].
    Author: El-singaby T.
    Journal: Tiers Monde (1960); 1985; 26(103):523-32. PubMed ID: 12280373.
    Abstract:
    Economic changes in Egypt over the past decade have resulted from a series of influences including the rise in the cost of oil, the world economic crisis, and governmental efforts to develop a new policy of economic development. Although the effects of economic change are more immediately apparent in urban areas, their import has perhaps been more profound in the countryside. The most comfortable agricultural producers are growing a greater variety of crops, are more highly capitalized operations, and are more closely influenced by the world and local markets. Producers failing to make these changes are being bought out in a type of agrarian self-reform financed ultimately by income from migration to oil producing states. Members of an Egyptian family studied from 1969-84 were typical landless rural cultivaters renting lands until 1969, when they obtained title to a small quantity of land under the 3rd law of agrarian reform, promulgated in March 1969. Despite the agrarian reform, the role of the landlord initially was largely replaced by that of the state, on which the family now became dependent. The family retained the essential characteristics of the landless peasant: low standard of living, necessity of selling their labor to larger producers, and absence of decision making capacity concerning type of cultivation and direct experience with the market. The agrarian reform cooperative now played the role of intermediary formerly filled by the landlord. During the period from 1974-81, which saw a new government policy development, 2 brothers in the family worked as laborers in Iraq, leaving their wives and children behind in the care of the extended family. Their father ceased to fill the role of patriach; the new need for an entrepreneur was filled by 1 of the emigrating brothers, who arranged for purchase of a house to replace the family's rented quarters and also bought a tractor to be rented to other cultivators, representing a new source of income, mechanization of the countryside, and a form of capitalization. Tomatoes and other vegetables were added to the family crops. The family's standard of living continued to improve, and greater efforts were made to educate the children. The entrepreneur brother was replaced after his accidental death by a younger brother who continued his activities while still striving to maintain the family labor pool, which now amounted to 32 workers based on 5 marriages. The original new house was rented and then sold to finance more land purchases, and a constant supply of migrant remittances was available. The local wage rate also increased significantly, raising the possibility of significant earnings. The progress of this family was not atypical and was partly due to the internal aptitude of Egyptian society for integrating change.
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