FARMLAND INFRINGEMENT AND ITS IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY IN EGYPT

Abstract

Farmland infringement for the purpose of construction has become a serious problem in Egypt that negatively affects the average per capita of arable land and soil fertility in Egypt. On the other hand, this situation negatively affects Egypt's self-sufficiency rates of agricultural commodities, agricultural income, and employment in rural areas. However, farmland infringement is completely forbidden by the Egyptian agricultural legislation. In this regard, the current study aims at assessing the impact of farmland infringement on food security in Egypt, besides recommend schemes that would reduce farmland infringement, increase the Egyptian agricultural production, raise Egypt's selfsufficiency rates of agricultural commodities, and reduce the deficit in agricultural trade balance, and reduce the problem of unemployment in rural areas. Moreover, the current study used descriptive analysis to achieve its goals. The main results of this study showed that the total area of agricultural land that had been infringed by the construction during the period (1983-31/3/2008) reached about 134.0 thousand feddans, out of which about 18.4 thousand feddans (representing 13.7%) are used for public projects, and about 27.7 thousand feddans (representing 20.7%) are used for private houses and projects for livestock production. However, the total area of agricultural land that had been infringed by the construction in violation reached about 87.5 thousand feddans, representing 65.2%. Moreover, the total qualitative loss of farmland due to productivity deterioration reached about 658.7 thousand feddans. Besides, the results showed that the most important reasons behind farmland infringement by construction in Egypt are the increasing number of rural households, the poor fine on violation for construction on farmlands, the exceptions to prohibit construction on farmlands, the large proportion of low productivity agricultural land which encourages their owners to turn them into non-agricultural activities, allowing facilities to connect the buildings illegally constructed on farmlands, and the limited residential rental buildings in rural areas. On the other hand, the results indicated the loss of agricultural income as the most important impacts of farmland quantitative infringement in Egypt, reaching an annual average of about L.E. 1.76 billion for the period (2007-2009) in a crop rotation of winter onion followed by summer tomato. Moreover, the costs of reclaiming new lands to compensate for quantitative farmland infringement reaching about L.E. 335 million is another important effect of farmland quantitative infringement in Egypt. Besides, the yields of wheat, barley, faba bean, alfalfa, and maize in new reclaimed land are lower than those in the Nile Valley reaching only about 79%, 77%, 70%, 34% and 29% of the yields of these crops in the Nile Valley, respectively. This in turn, negatively affects food security in Egypt. Furthermore, the loss of agricultural production reaching about 362 and 461 thousand tonnes of wheat and maize, respectively in a crop rotation of wheat in winter followed by maize in summer which affected the contribution of domestic production in food security, where the self-sufficiency rate of strategic food commodities in 2007 reached about 54.4%, 53.2%, 52.1% and 76.9% for wheat, maize, faba bean and sugar crops, respectively. However, the results showed that the Government of Egypt targets the establishment of 400 new villages in the hinterland desert during the period (2006-2011) to reduce the farmland infringement for the purpose of construction through the urbanization in the borders of the governorates and increase the reclaimed land to achieve higher degree of self-reliance in achieving security Food in Egypt. However, the study showed that only 36 villages were established until the year 2010, representing about 9% of the 400 targeted villages. Finally, the study recommends strengthening the Egyptian agricultural legislation regarding the violation for construction on farmlands by increasing the minimum fine on this kind of violation to reach 200 times the rental value of one feddan cultivated by wheat as it was in the year 1983 thus, prohibit facilities to connect the buildings illegally constructed on farmlands, the expansion of land reclamation in the light of current available water resources, executing land conservation projects, and achieving a higher degree of reliance on domestic production to achieve food security in Egypt.