Agricultural Mechanization in Egypt: Hopes and Fears

Abstract

The fellah has never used tractors, reapers, binders, and threshing machines, and it is unlikely that he ever will. He is too poor, and in any case feels no need of intermediaries between him and the soilH. H. Ayrout, The Egyptian Peasant, 1963.Father Ayrout might be surprised by the Egyptian countryside today! Agricultural mechanization has been spreading rapidly, especially since 1973. Although national tractor censuses are notoriously unreliable because of the problems of treating old machines, current official estimates place the number of four-wheeled tractors at 25,000. Over 1,000 tractors have been manufactured at the Nasr works in Helwan every year since 1973; the number of tractor imports has quadrupled in the same period (see table I).