Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

Habib Ayeb, Ray Bush

Description

A study of the political economy of agrarian transformation

‘Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa’ studies the political economy of agrarian transformation in the eponymous regions. Examining Egypt and Tunisia in detail as case studies, it critiques the dominant tropes of food security offered by the international financial institutions and promotes the importance of small-scale family farming in developing sustainable food sovereignty. Egypt and Tunisia are located in the context of the broader Middle East and broader processes of war, environmental transformation and economic reform.

The book contributes to uncovering the historical backdrop and contemporary pressures in the Middle East and North Africa for the uprisings of 2010 and 2011. It also explores the continued failure of post-uprising counter-revolutionary governments to directly address issues of rural development that put the position and role of small farmers centre stage.

1. Introduction: Agrarian Transformations and Modernisations; 2. War, Economic Reform and Environmental Crisis; 3. The Agrarian Origins of Regime Change; 4. Food Security in Egypt and Tunisia; 5. Farmers and Farming: Tunisia; 6. Farmers and Farming: Egypt; 7. Food Sovereignty; References; Index.

Sujets

• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Public policy
• Social sciences

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785270895
• Langue: English

Extrait

Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
Agrarian Questions in Egypt and Tunisia
Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2019
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
Copyright © Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush 2019
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-087-1 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-087-7 (Hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-090-1 (Pbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-090-7 (Pbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Hassanine Kishk (1946–2019).
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Preface and Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: Agrarian Transformations and Modernisations
Introduction
Agrarian Transformations: Peasants and Family Farming
Peasants
Farming and Modernisation
Egypt
Tunisia
Conclusion
2. War, Economic Reform and Environmental Crisis
Introduction
War and Conflict
Economic Reform and Adjustment
Environmental Crises
Conclusion
3. The Agrarian Origins of Regime Change
Introduction
Arab Springs and Jasmine Revolutions?
The Peasantry and the Uprisings
Egypt
Tunisia
Class and the Uprisings
Social-Spatial Marginalisation
Bouazizi’s Immolation and Class Solidarity
Social Change and Class Conflict: The Case of Sidi Bouzid
Conclusion
4. Food Security in Egypt and Tunisia
Introduction
Food Security
Egypt
Contemporary Food Security
Tunisia
Contemporary Food Security
Conclusion
5. Farmers and Farming: Tunisia
Introduction
Peasants and Agricultural Land: A Source of Inequality
Irrigation as a Tool of Dispossession
Land: Reform and Dispossession from Colonialism to Neoliberalism
1956–64: The Postcolonial State and Early Agrarian Transformation
1960–70: Collectivising the Private and Privatising the Collective: The Dramatic Phase of Collectivisation
Dispossession and Collective Lands
From Bread Riots to Structural Adjustment and the Construction of Food Dependence
Bread Riots, January 1984
Structural Adjustment
From Food Self-Sufficiency to Food Security: A Paradigm Shift
Agriculture and ‘Development’
Pluriactivity
Women’s Labour
Agriculture in Crisis
Conclusion
6. Farmers and Farming: Egypt
Introduction
The Egyptian Paradox: Developed Agriculture, Poor Peasants
Food Crises and Uprisings
Agriculture and Peasants: Agrarian Reform and Counter-Reform
The 1950s, Nasser’s Agrarian Reforms: Hopes and Frustrations
Land Redistribution: A Mixed Assessment
The Counter-Reform
Law 96 of 1992: The Struggle between Owners and Tenants
Land Concentration and the Exclusion of Small Farmers
Water: Access and Scarcity?
Land Fragmentation and Injustice
Conclusion
7. Food Sovereignty
Introduction
Food Sovereignty
Moving towards Food Sovereignty
Conclusion
References
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
4.1 Egypt: Food Security
4.2 Tunisia: Food Security
4.3 Tunisia: Cereal Production and Imports
6.1 Cereals and Wheat: Production, Import, Export and Supply. Egypt 2000–16 (in million tons)
6.2 Egypt: Cereals and Wheat Self-Sufficiency Rate in Percentage
Tables
1.1 World Food Systems
5.1 Evolution of Agrarian Structures (Number, Area, Area/Farmer) 1961–62, 1994–95 and 2004–5 (Tunisia)
5.2 Evolution of Public, Private and Total Irrigated Areas (in ha) 1956 to 2005 (Tunisia)
5.3 Distribution of Irrigated Areas according to the Size of Land, Tunisia, 1994–95 and 2004–5. (Units 1,000 ha and %)
5.4 Percentage Distribution of Irrigated Areas between the North and the South of the Country
5.5 Comparison of Tunisia’s Planned and Achieved Agriculture Performance, 1971
5.6 Export Growth Rate by Sector, Tunisia
5.7 Agricultural Production, Tunisia 2000–2016 (in 000 tons)
5.8 Foreign Trade in Agri-Food Products, Tunisia, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 (in percentage)
5.9 Distribution of Subsidy Benefits by Class of Population (Poor/Non-Poor) (Tunisia)
6.1 Structure of Agricultural Holdings in 1952 (Egypt)
6.2 Access to Clean Water at Home (One or More Taps) in 1996 and 2016 (percentage) (Egypt)
6.3 Percentage of Poor in Different Governorates according to the National Poverty Line (Egyptian Pound (LE) per year, per capita)
7.1 Seven Principles of Food Sovereignty
7.2 Food Security or Food Sovereignty?
Maps
3.1 Poverty and Revolution in Tunisia, 2008–11
3.2 Percentage of Unemployed, Tunisia, 2018
3.3 Percentage of Poverty, Tunisia, 2015
6.1 Egypt: Spatial Distribution of Wheat Production
ABBREVIATIONS ASA P Agricultural Structural Adjustment Programme, Tunisia BNA Banque Nationale Agricole CPG Compagnie des phosphates de Gafsa EUR Euro FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations FS Food sovereignty GDP Gross domestic product GMO Genetically modified organism GoE Government of Egypt GoT Government of Tunisia IFI International Financial Institution IMF International Monetary Fund LE Egyptian pound LVC La Via Campesina MENA Middle East and North Africa MNC Multinational company NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGO Nongovernment Organisation NDP National Democratic Party (Egypt) OPTs Occupied Palestinian Territories SONEDE Société Nationale d’Exploitation et de Distribution des Eaux STEG Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz UCPA Cooperative Units for Agricultural Productions UGTT General Union for Tunisian Workers UNDP United Nations Development Programme USAID United States Agency for International Development UAE United Arab Emirates WFP World Food Programme 1 feddan 1.038 acres or 0.42 hectares
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book marks many years of collaboration and engagement with family farming and agrarian questions in Africa, the Middle East and in particular Egypt and Tunisia. We have benefitted greatly from conversations and discussions with colleagues and farmers in both countries. We are particularly grateful to François Ireton who has supported this work throughout and helped with data collection and organising statistical material to help analyse economic and social underdevelopment in Egypt and Tunisia. Nada Trigui and Sara Pozzi helped with translation from French into English. We have benefitted from membership of Thimar , a research collective on agriculture, environment and labour in the Arab World, based in Beirut and coordinated by Martha Mundy and Karim Eid-Sabbagh.
Thanks for comments on parts of the manuscript to Ali Kadri whose critical eye served us well. We are very thankful to Max Ajl who greatly enriched this work through many conversations and made invaluable comments on an early draft. His insight and perspectives have helped sharpen many of our arguments. Thanks also to Giuliano Martiniello who commented on an early draft and whose work on peasants and agrarian questions is so important.
Mark Duffield remains an inspiration.
Drafting this work would have been much more difficult without all the support and we feel honoured to have received it. Usual caveats that we may not have always done what we may have been encouraged to do. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Open Society Foundation Middle East and the North Africa Programme office in Amman and Tunis.
It is with sadness we completed this book, as our dear comrade Hassanine Kishk passed away. The book is dedicated to his memory – an outstanding comrade.
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATIONS AND MODERNISATIONS
Introduction
This book explores the political economy of agriculture and farming in Egypt and Tunisia. It highlights the economic and political significance that small-scale family farming has had historically in these countries and with reference to the wider MENA region. We document many of the pressures and constraints that farmers have had to deal with and we examine the myriad and largely negative policy interventions that have undermined, and often displaced, families and communities with little provision and opportunity for alternative non-agricultural livelihoods. We go further, however, than most analyses of the region, by locating investigation of the uneven consequences for farmers and the abjection that many have experienced, by understanding the impact as part of the way Egypt and Tunisia have been adversely incorporated into the world economy.
Egyptian and Tunisian agricultu