La participation des fellahs à l'agriculture irriguée dans l'Egypte contemporaine

The fellah's participation to the irrigated agriculture in the contemporaneous Egypt

ORSTOM

Abstract

The landscapes of the Nile's valley and delta have been completely transformed during the last two centuries: the controled submersion has gradually disappeared towards the perennial irrigation. The process is prior to the High Dam of Assouan, which comes to conclude the new water management set of the Nile: it begun with the Saint-Simoniens in the 1830-1840's and achieved in the 1960's with water storage, and in the 1980-1990's as for drainage adjustment.

During the 19th century, the interest of the State falls on a cash crop, cotton with long fibers. It takes place in the cropping pattern where also figures wheat, clover (bersim) and corn ("Turkish wheat"). As a tropical crop, cotton cannot support the cold of the winter. In order to be cultivated, it has to be sown in February-March and harvested in August at the time when the Nile is in flood. The landscape changes: the State tries to delay and to avoid the flood. It has to bring the water artificially during the low water level of the river. The sakkia becomes the instrument of integration in the scale of the fellahs in a context of new hydraulic conditions, land tenure reform and controled agriculture markets.

The High Dam of Assouan avoids the major risk of villages and crops being destroyed. The delay taken in programs of drainage induces processes of salinisation, while the urbanisation left lands to the so limited agricultural area.