FAO
Investment Centre
Socio-economic and Production
Systems Studies
Le Centre d'investissement de la FAO
Études des systèmes
socio-économiques et productifs
El Centro de Inversiones de la FAO
Estudios de los sistemas
socioeconómicos y productivos
This socio-economic and production systems study (SEPSS) was carried out by the FAO Investment Centre in October 1995, to support preparation of a poverty alleviation project requested by the Government of Egypt to help rural villages in the Sohag Governorate reduce poverty by implementing participatory micro-projects under the umbrella of the National Programme for Integrated Rural Development. The project aims to improve the income and quality of life in rural communities and to improve equitable access to credit for the rural poor, unemployed youth and women. In addition, the project seeks to enhance local capacity to programme, appraise, co-finance, implement and manage rural infrastructure projects and services.
The Sohag Governorate was selected because:
The FAO Investment Centre’s main contribution to project preparation was to design and facilitate this study, in order to ensure that implementing agencies undertake appropriate consultations with the villagers as a basis for project design, and ensure that the priorities of the poor and women are reflected in project design and are high on the list of priority actions. This was done by: identifying and setting up a 12-person team at Governorate level, composed of middle-level staff of implementing agencies of which four were women; training SEPSS team members in Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods, including hands-on training in two villages; selecting a village representative of the range of farming systems and socio-economic situations; acting as facilitators during the SEPSS; and assisting them with cross-cutting analysis of their findings and in drawing implications for project design.
Key questions addressed by the study. Are village leaders' priorities the same as those of the majority of the population? If not, what can the project do to put the priorities of the poor higher on the agenda? If the local institutions are not very sympathetic to the poor, what alternative institutional arrangements could be considered? Who are community development association members and whose interests are they supporting? How well does the National Programme for Integrated Rural Development reflect the interests of the poorer households? What could be done to give the poor a bigger voice?
An overview of the study area, production systems, household typology and data collected is presented below.
Administrative Units
Sohag Governorate is composed of 11 districts stretched from North
to South along the Nile. It includes 51 administrative villages, 264 affiliated
villages, and 1,118 hamlets located in most cases at some distance from
the larger villages.
The 16 villages visited by this study were in the districts: Sohag, Tahta, Jirjah, Tema, Akhmeem, Dar es Salaam, al Maragha, al Manshah, Sagulta and Balyana.
Demography
The Governorate's total population reached 3 million in 1995, distributed
in 461,600 households. The overall gender balance of the population suggests
that out-migration has had little demographic impact, with 51% of the population
male and 49% female. The rate of population increase is high at 2.7%, or
more than 0.5% higher than the national average. UNICEF gives a rate of
2.8% annual increase in 1992, showing a significant drop from the late
1980s, as it was 3.6% in 1987 and 3.1% in 1990. Population density in the
area is extremely high, with about 1,900 people/km2, the highest being
in Akhmeem district, with 2,805 persons/km2 and the lowest in Dar as Salaam
district with 1341 persons/km2.
According to the 1994 Egypt Human Development Report, the contraceptive prevalence rate in Sohag Governorate in 1988 was the fourth lowest in the country, with 16.2% of couples of reproductive age using contraceptives, compared to Cairo where 59% used contraception. Alongside the high rate of population increase there are other demographic factors which suggest long-term development problems and which are likely to worsen poverty in the coming years.
The rate of population increase is higher than the national average, suggesting a low level of human development, as is confirmed in the Human Development Report which ranks Sohag as the lowest governorate in the country. Specifically the Governorate has the lowest life expectancy at birth (60.3), the lowest adult literacy rate (30.3%), its children, alongside those of the neighbouring Qena Governorate have the lowest number of mean years of schooling (2.8). Its population have the fourth lowest per capita income ($560 in 1990).
The rate of urbanization has increased rapidly from 15% to 23% in the decade between 1985 and 1995. This is only one of the illustrations of the inability of agriculture to support the rapidly increasing population of the Governorate. Despite this, the population of the Governorate is still mostly rural [77%], living in the main villages which have populations of an average of 20,000 inhabitants each; affiliated village populations range from 1,000 to 15,000 inhabitants and hamlets have between 100 and 300 households. At the Governorate level, over 45% of the population is under 15, with a further 12% aged 15 to 19, i.e. 57% of the population is under 20. Only 2.4% of the population is over 60. Thus, ignoring the possible participation of children in the workforce as well as the high rate of adult unemployment, it can be roughly said that 47.5% of the population are dependent; if these factors are considered, well over 50% of the population would be considered dependent.
It is worth noting that the village level data were gathered from official sources and were worked out on the basis of the 1986 census with estimates of the increase, whose accuracy may be debatable in view of some of the important changes which have taken place since the mid-1980s, in particular a change in the migration pattern accentuated by the Gulf war, and overall changes in fertility rates in Egypt. The 16 villages studied by the teams have total populations ranging from a minimum of 5,079 to a maximum of 33, 280, most of them having an average household size of 5 or 5.5 persons.
Social Infrastructure
Education: Despite considerable efforts in recent decades, the social infrastructure has not kept up with the needs of the rapidly increasing population. The availability of facilities will be discussed below, but in general, the rate of illiteracy in the Governorate is very high, being 65% overall, over 70% in rural areas with female illiteracy being over 80%: in the 8 villages for which data were provided by the teams, female illiteracy is estimated at 52.5%; this is probably an underestimate as there is no reason to believe that the situation is better in these than in other villages in the Governorate. There is little prospect of the situation improving for future generations, given that current primary school enrollment includes only 65% of the total age group, with 48% of girls and 72% of boys. All villages have a number of primary schools, but they are insufficient for the demand; some have intermediate schools and the number of secondary schools is even more limited. In the 16 villages studied there are 51 state primary schools and 11 Koranic schools to serve a population of youth under 15 of 99,600. Only four of these villages have an intermediate school locally and in the others the distance to such a school varies from 1 to 3 km. Only one of the villages has a secondary school, and the distance to travel from other villages is up to 10km.
Health Facilities: These are limited in the rural areas. In the Governorate there are 149 rural health units, one school health unit, 35 health centers and 9 hospitals. Of the 16 villages surveyed, 10 had a health unit within the village, and for others distance to be travelled varied from 0.5km to 5km. Although the overall number of health facilities in the Governorate is reasonable, existing facilities are primarily in the towns and many of them are insufficiently equipped, as well as lacking most basic supplies for much of the time. This lack of facilities and supplies is in a context of extremely high population density and a very low standard of hygiene, with canal water being used by children for playing and fishing, as well as by livestock and also often by women for laundry and dishwashing. The canal water carries whatever impurities have been dropped in the Nile from Uganda onwards.
Water and Sanitation Facilities: Although piped water is available in many mother villages, including all 16 villages studied by the teams, this is not the case for satellite villages or hamlets. The vast majority of households have hand pumps within the household compound, drawing water directly from the water table, which is close to the surface and not always clean; hand pumps were found in most of the households visited by the teams. Overall, 29% of the rural population have access to piped water by comparison with 82% of the urban population; the district with the highest percentage of rural households with piped water is Tahta with 45% and the lowest is Dar es Salaam with 5%.
While the situation concerning the supply of domestic water is bad, that concerning sewerage is far worse. Only 9 local units have any sewerage system, and these are only in the mother villages. None of the 16 villages studied had any form of sewerage. Waste is dumped in holes, in the open in villages and also often directly into the canal, thus worsening the health hazards of canal water. Again this situation is worsened by the very high population density.
The health and sanitation situation is partly reflected in the health indicators, though these are distorted by the lack of registration of births and deaths particularly with respect to infants and children. The recorded IMR is 37.7 per thousand while the child mortality rate is 13.7 per thousand.
Electricity: Since the construction of the High Dam, electricity is available in most of Egypt's rural areas. While all local units have electricity, and the vast majority of satellite villages are also electrified, there remain a number of hamlets which do not have electricity. Among the 16 villages studied only 2 hamlets were found to lack electricity. However there are a far higher proportion of households without electricity, as within the villages many families cannot afford it. According to the UNICEF survey, al Manshah district has the highest proportion of houses with electricity, with 79% while Sagulta has the lowest with 55% of houses connected to the network. In rural Sohag, 69% of households use electricity for lighting, 30% use kerosene and insignificant numbers use gas or other forms of lighting.
Communications: All local unit mother villages are accessible
by asphalt road, as are many satellite villages. However lack of asphalted
roads was a complaint by a number of villagers and affects mainly more
remote hamlets. In view of the high rate of out-migration in the Governorate,
post and telecommunications are very important. Of the 16 villages studied
14 have postal and public telecommunications facilities, one only has a
post office and the last has neither. Here again, while mother villages
are normally equipped, more information would be necessary concerning the
ease of access to these facilities found in satellite villages and in hamlets.
All villages surveyed had some shops and other marketing facilities.
The Governorate's population has been increasing very rapidly in recent decades with a higher fertility rate than in other more developed parts of Egypt. The population of the Governorate has doubled since 1960, though the surface of land under cultivation has barely changed. The pattern of settlement in Sohag as elsewhere in the Nile valley is in hamlets and villages whose housing is concentrated in clusters, near a canal or the Nile. Hamlets are populated by related nuclear or extended families. Similarly common descent is the major factor determining the settlement of satellite villages and mother villagers, though the latter are also populated by outsiders who initially moved in as administrators and may have settled on a permanent basis up to 100 years ago. However there is considerable social homogeneity in the villages, with common ancestry between the wealthier and poorer members of the community, though some of the traditionally larger landowners may be former outsiders who were allocated large areas of land in the 19th Century under Mohammed Ali or even earlier in the Ottoman period.
With the vast majority of the population being direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians, the most significant population of immigrants are the Hawara or descendants of nomads who came from the Arabian Peninsula after the rise of Islam. They form almost 100% of the total population of Jeheina district, 65% of the population of Balyana district, and are also significant in other districts, such as Dar as Salaam, Tahta and Jirjah.
Out-migration has been a very important phenomenon in the past 20 years, and it served to alleviate the social and economic difficulties caused by a rapidly increasing population in an environment lacking new sources of income. Although detailed figures are not available, it appears that Sohag has been a major source of out-migrants both nationally and internationally. Internal migrants appear to work mainly in Cairo and Alexandria in building and unskilled daily labour activities, and many of them return home during the period of peak agricultural labour demand. In the villages surveyed, rough estimates of internal migrants ranged from a minimum of 1% of the adult male labour force to a maximum of 40%, with 10% as an average.
International migration was basically a phenomenon of the 1970s and the 1980s. Although most current migrants are remaining where they are, there is a trickle back phenomenon among them. In addition there is little new migration. According to rough estimates provided by village authorities, international migration in the villages studied concerns an average of 11% of the adult male labour force. Insignificant numbers of men are working in Libya or elsewhere. Two districts in Sohag were considered to be richer than the others as a result of international migration since the 1970s.
Social Organization
The Sohag area has a fairly homogeneous social organization. The two
main population groups, the indigenous population and the Hawara live side
by side in reasonable harmony, though little intermarriage takes place.
The latter are the descendants of the immigrants from the Arabian Peninsula
whose ancestors came around the 15th Century . In addition to these groups
there are throughout the area a small number of people associated with
'professional castes', who do not intermarry with anyone and who are considered
of lower social status; at most they form 5% of the total population. They
include hawkers, water carriers, barbers and dancers.
While long lineages were a tradition prior to the 1952 Revolution, they have since then been gradually abandoned, and no longer feature in the social structure and life of the area, at least not explicitly. However they do still exist as is demonstrated by regular inter-family feuds. Traditional ties of family and lineage solidarity are gradually decreasing in favour of individualism under the influence of a number of factors:
Political Institutions: Each village has a People's Council composed of 15 to 20 elected members, who occasionally include a woman. This council meets once a week and forms the official local political power structure. Members are elected for six years. These councils are represented at the Local Unit and district levels, where each lower level is represented by six members. Those elected are usually the elders of the most influential families in the village.
The President of the Village Council is nominated by the Governor and a civil servant. He presides over the Village Council which is composed of other civil servants representing the Government institutions present in the village: Education, Health, Public Works, Social Affairs, the Village Bank and Agriculture.
The traditional power structure at the village level is based on extended families and their influence. The elder or sheikh of each family is its leader, and the power and influence of each family is based on the size of its landownership and wealth. Traditionally, wealth was directly correlated with landholding, but in recent years with the impact of international migration, the situation is in the process of changing and in some places tension is developing between people who have acquired wealth as migrants and who are seeking political power as a result, while traditional leaders have not always managed to add the income of migration to that of landownership. Migrants also buy land as a means towards political power as well as further enrichment. As a result there is some fluctuation in the village level power structure. At the level of the satellite villages and hamlets, traditional leaders are the representatives of the State structures, in the form of omdas, and mashaykh who are the senior members of the most influential families in each settlement.
Social Institutions: Life in Egyptian villages has been closely regulated in recent decades with very little going on which is not sanctioned by the authorities. During the 1960s, Social Development Centers were built in most villages to be the headquarters of the Community Development Organizations. These are not NGOs in the usually accepted meaning of the term, but rather officially sponsored institutions, which are registered in the Ministry of Social Affairs and which have access to Government funding. These institutions vary in their current status, some of them being active and others dormant. In the 16 villages surveyed, seven have a Community Development Organization, though it is unclear from the data collected how many of them are active. Four villages have a social center: these centers contain training workshops in a variety of skills ranging from carpentry and ironmongery for men to sewing and embroidery for women; they usually have a nursery which is used primarily by female government civil servants to leave their children during working hours.
In addition to these there are a number of welfare organizations, most of them connected with the religious community. Other institutions which were initiated in the 1960s have spread to many villages. Among the 16 studied, 9 have a youth center, but none has a women's center. There are no unofficial associations, as an NGO needs to be registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs to be able to operate legally.
The Agricultural Cooperative system was well developed and operated throughout the country with a hierarchy of cooperatives covering the vast majority if not all of the country's villages. These were responsible for the supply of subsidized inputs and with marketing of crops, and basically act as intermediaries between the farming community and the Government. The Director of the Cooperative is a civil servant appointed by the Ministry whereas its President is normally one of the elders of an important village family.
Grassroots Organizations
Informal groups do not exist in Sohag Governorate. No women's centers
exist in any of the 16 villages studied, nor were any other NGOs reported
with the exception of three welfare associations in one village. The Community
Development Associations which exist in 11 villages are not all active,
and they are semi-official institutions. The village reports do not provide
any data on their current level of activity or ability to work in the interests
of poor villagers.
Agricultural Cooperatives exist in all villages. Membership of these cooperatives was mandatory for those farmers who had reasonable access to it, and even in satellite villages or hamlets many farmers joined. The cooperatives used to provide farmers with inputs, machinery services and credit. They also assumed the responsibility for marketing crops and supervised cropping patters which they fixed and farmers were obliged to follow. Cooperatives were thus in control of marketing prices as well as the cost of inputs which they exclusively distributed. This system ceased in 1986 and the system has gradually been liberalized ever since. The cooperatives lost their power and farmers can market their crops freely; however the complaint now concerns the availability and price of fertilizers which seem to have been a major problem raised by farmers interviewed, particularly those with larger holdings. Despite their history and the fact that cooperatives are considered to be part of the State structure at the local level, they are still considered important and most farmers interviewed were interested in the services provided, requesting an improvement in their quantity and quality, either with respect to inputs or to control of farm equipment.
Access to Supporting Services and Infrastructure
Access by farmers to most support services used to come through the
cooperative system, and insofar as such services operate, the cooperative
is still the most convenient way of reaching them. However the marketing
of most inputs has now been privatized, but availability seems to be a
problem. Agricultural extension services are present, though their effectiveness
is considered to be far from optimal. In the 16 villages studied, all have
agricultural extension agents, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 15
in a single village, with an average of 6 per village.
Credit is accessible through the rural banks, which are present in every mother village, and whose director is an influential member of the community. However the high interest rates are a serious disincentive to their use, as are the difficulties of access for those who do not have collateral in the form of landholding. Youth, the landless and women all find it extremely difficult to get credit from the bank. In addition in each village cases were mentioned of people who had lost their land as a result of their inability to repay the loans taken from the bank, and therefore this form of credit is seen as problematic.
Asphalted roads lead to almost all main villages, though satellite villages and hamlets are often served by dirt roads whose condition is in various degrees of disrepair.
Land Tenure, Water Rights and Control of Common Property Resources
The land tenure system in Egypt changed with the 1952 Agrarian Reform
which reduced the holdings of the largest landowners and set ceilings on
holdings by families [100 feddan] and individuals [50 feddan]. In the Governorate
there were few large landowners, their precise number is not available
for this report. Sharecroppers cultivated much of this land. The Land Reform
positively affected a number of beneficiaries, most of whom had been sharecroppers:
they received their land and became official tenants, with fixed rents
amounting to 7 times the annual land tax, which is fixed according to the
quality of the land. In 1991, regulations were changed to fix the rents
at 22 times the land tax, and now the rent changes every 2 or 3 years;
currently rents vary from LE 300 to LE 550 per feddan. Beneficiaries of
the land reform have security of tenure, and their descendants can inherit
and even divide the land among themselves at the death of the original
landholders. They may not sell the land.
In addition to the beneficiaries of the land reform, land is rented on a seasonal basis unofficially. This form of renting is unregulated and rents are much higher [LE 1000 -1500 per feddan]; tenants have no security of tenure and are little more than labourers.
Land holdings are generally very small within the area irrigated by the Nile canal system, there is no available land for expansion. The only ways in which additional land could be made available for cultivation are either by expanding the canal system further into the desert area or by reclaiming land and digging wells which would be pump-operated.
In 1993, the Government issued a Privatization Law which includes provision for the return of lands to the owners from the pre-Agrarian Reform period. It gives them the right to rent their land freely or to cultivate it themselves. The law is due to be implemented in 1997.
Access to irrigation water from the Nile is regulated by the State. The Directorate of Irrigation is responsible for management of the irrigation system up to the tertiary canal system, the 'mesqas'. These minors as well as the field level water courses are the responsibility of the farmers, with respect to maintenance and repairs. Water from the Nile is a nationally owned and managed asset, and is distributed free. In the newly reclaimed lands, where water comes from wells and boreholes, control is exercised by the landowner who has invested in the drilling and equipment of the well.
There are very few common assets in the studied area. Almost all land is used for construction, cultivation or infrastructures [roads, canals, drains]. In the villages studied, it was reported that up to 20 years ago common land existed: it belonged to the tribe and was allocated to temporary visitors, though the amount was reported to be about 600m2 per village. In some villages some very small areas remain, which are expected to be used for the construction of infrastructures such as schools, health or community centers. Communally-owned agricultural or grazing land is non-existent in the area. Government land, outside of the gravity irrigated area is being taken and reclaimed by individual farmers who obtain leases to exploit it as private property. They then have control over the output of any wells they drill and operate.
Ownership of Land and Assets
At the Governorate level, currently there are 209,000 farming families
and 150,000 landless households. 69% of the farming households are owner
occupiers on 70% of the cropped land, and 31% are tenants on 30% of the
cultivated area. Holdings are generally small: 59% of holdings are under
one feddan, mostly about 0.5 feddan, 34% have holdings of 1-3 feddan. Overall
93.3% of farmers own up to 3 feddan, covering 74.7% of the land.
Data on availability of production assets was collected at the village level. Agricultural machinery is generally still made available through Government Rental Stations, but privately owned machinery is also widespread. In the 16 villages studied, a total of 539 machines were recorded, or about 34 per village, though these data are not disaggregated between different types of tractors and other machinery. Water pumps are essential for most irrigation, as canal levels are generally lower than those of the fields, and pumps have generally taken over from the traditional bullock driven water wheels: in the 16 villages a total of 1,160 pumps were recorded or an average of 72.5 per village.
Labour Rates, Division of Labour and Labour Cycle
Labour rates show little variation. The lowest rates are for agricultural
labour which varies between LE 5 and 7 for a day's work, with an average
over 10 villages for which data was provided of LE 5.6 /day. Rates for
working in the building trade are slightly higher ranging from LE 7 to
LE 10 per day with an average of LE 7.8 over the 7 villages for which these
data were collected. Skilled work in carpentry, ironmongering etc is paid
at rates varying between LE 10 and LE 15/day, with an average of LE 11.5
in 9 villages.
The gender division of labour is fairly strict, with women staying in the home and dealing with livestock, post-harvest processing and domestic activities, and rarely working in the fields. Women do however, appear to cut fodder for the livestock and some of them, the particularly poor and often heads of households, participate in field activities as wage labourers. Marketing is mostly a male activity though women are beginning to appear as sellers in rural markets.
The annual labour cycle has peak demand in agriculture at the time of cotton planting (March), the wheat harvest (May), the cotton harvest (November) and land preparation for wheat and foul beans (November); peak demand for internal migrants along the coast is in February, as well as July, August and September.
Employment
On the basis of the problems mentioned, of demographic data and of
known work opportunities it is clear that unemployment is a major problem
in the area. At the Governorate level, officially registered unemployment
has increased from 4% in 1960 to 16% in 1986 and 24% in 1995. Unemployment
was seen as a major problem for many of the social groups interviewed,
particularly young men and women, both educated and illiterate. It is clearly
also a problem for adult men, and particularly those with small holdings
or landless people who have families to keep.
Poverty
On the basis of crop yields and prices, it is clear that a family of
six people needs to have 3 feddan or more to be able to live off agriculture.
This means that in the Governorate, 93% of households have a per capita
income which is below the absolute poverty line. The staples they cultivate
feed them for at most three months a year. For survival they have to rely
on additional off-farm work as labourers either in agriculture or elsewhere
and many of them are involved in internal seasonal migration. A further
5% who farm between 3 and 5 feddan live in relative poverty. Only those
having holdings over 5 feddan can be considered to live in relative comfort.
According to data collected during identification, off-farm income for
93% of farm families accounts for 22% to 38% of their total income.
Household Structure
The average household size in the Governorate as well as in the villages
studied is about 5.5 persons per household. This strongly suggests that
the vast majority of households are nuclear, with parents and children
and excluding grandparents. However larger houses contain more than one
household, with brothers and their families sharing the same roof and facilities,
even if cooking is done separately.
Gender Roles and Relations
As a general rule, men are responsible for activities outside the home:
they do most of the work in crop cultivation, as daily wage labourers in
agriculture and other activities such as building, stone cutting, carpentry
etc. They are also the emigrants in the family, both with respect to internal
and international migration.
Women are mostly restricted to the home, where they have full responsibility for domestic chores: cleaning, cooking, child care, laundry etc. In homes where there are animals, they also do most of the work concerning livestock husbandry: feeding and milking animals, cleaning them and their stables. They have full responsibility and control over poultry and other fowl. Most women do not leave the home, having even been supplied with a hand pump for domestic water supply to ensure that they need not go out. Women also do any agricultural work that can be done within the home, e.g. post-harvest food processing. Women are nominally free to use as they like, any income earned from the sale animal produce [milk products, eggs, fowl] or from needlework or other activities. In practice however, most of this income is spent on family needs and rarely separated from the family budget.
With respect to decision-making, the situation appears to differ considerably between the 14 villages for which data were collected. In four villages, women were reported to have no role in household decision making; in one village women have a say in matters concerning the home, while men deal with all decisions concerning relations with the outside world. In the remaining six villages, the teams considered that women influence family decisions between 40% and 65%. Male emigration is said to give women more power in the family, both on the domestic front and with respect to agriculture and other income-generating activities.
Women's daily routines are quite heavy, involving the following activities: getting up early to milk the cattle, then getting children up, and dressed, preparing breakfast for the family. After breakfast and the departure of children and husband, women process the milk into butter and cheese, as well as clean the house. After the preparation and eating of lunch when other household members have returned, women wash clothes, again feed the livestock and milk cattle. They then prepare dinner, eat and get their children ready for sleeping; women may then have a few minutes of leisure before going to bed themselves.
On the basis of this timetable, it would appear that the women who would have time for additional income-generating activities in the home are those who do not have cattle or buffaloes; they are also probably in greater need of additional income as they do not have the income from the raw or processed milk.
According to the study, female headed households are extremely rare and are only found in the following cases: widowhood, divorce and in the long-term absence of a migrant husband. Only women heading households are said to be active in crop cultivation, carrying out tasks usually done by men. No figures were provided on the number of percentage of such households.
Main Social Problems as Perceived by Interviewees
In the social sector, the following are the main problems mentioned
by interviewees in order of priority:
Here only the data made available by the teams on the 16 villages studied is presented. These data were collected in interviews of farmers in the villages, either gathered in groups or in their homes. The teams attempted to interview about 4 persons per village in each category and the final number of interviewees was 360.
Food Sufficiency
Holders of under 1 feddan can on average feed their families for 3.1
month from their fields, with a range from 2 to 5 months. Holders of between
1 and 3 feddan can on average feed their families for 4.5 months, with
a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 9.5 months. Many holders of 3 to 5 feddan
can feed their families for 12 months a year, with an average of 10.5 months
and a minimum of 7.5 months. Farmers with more than 5 feddan are all self
sufficient and many of them trade staples.
Land Availability and Irrigation
Within the area irrigated by the Nile and its canal system, almost
no land is available for additional cultivation. In the 16 villages studied,
only 1% of land is reported to be unused in a single village. The distribution
of land by quality also varies in the different villages.
As reported in most villages, the canal infrastructure is deteriorating and many farmers complained of the erosion of canal banks, and bad condition of the linings where they exist. Erosion of fields from the Nile was also a source of complaint for farmers whose holdings are on the river.
Livestock
Livestock keeping is primarily carried out in the home compounds and
in very small numbers: one or two buffaloes or cows per family. According
to the survey the percentage of households having a buffalo or cow ranges
from 15 to 70, with an average over the 16 villages of 48%. These livestock
are under the care of women who feed, clean and milk them and are responsible
for the processing of their produce. Milk is turned into butter and cheese,
as well as consumed unprocessed, and in most cases the produce is consumed
within the family, though some is exchanged or sold to neighbours. Quantities
are modest. Dung is used primarily for cooking fuel and only secondarily
as fertilizer. The animals are fed crop by-products such as stalks as well
as fresh fodder. Due to the high cost of purchasing fodder, landless people
rarely own these animals.
There is a system of 'sharecropping' large ruminants, whereby an owner will give an animal to another, usually a poorer villager, to look after. The latter is then responsible for the feeding and all aspects of the husbandry of the animal, and benefits from its produce. Offspring are shared equally between the owner and the carer who take them in turn.
While almost half the households have an animal whose produce is primarily consumed at home, only the wealthier members of the community and particularly those with large landholdings, can afford to raise and fatten large ruminants on a commercial basis. However animal fattening is a very popular activity which most farmers interviewed wanted to take up.
With respect to livestock keeping by landless people, the field study provided different data on livestock than those provided either in the Cropping Systems paper or the Rural Social Structure one (editor's note: these are not included in the present study); it also contrasts with the situation found in other countries, where livestock is a major resource for the landless. According to the teams, the fact that the landless in Sohag do not rely on livestock as a major source of income is due to the total absence of grazing land and to the high cost of purchased fodder, which is a reasonable explanation though it leaves one to wonder how the landless actually do survive. The field data they collected certainly confirms that livestock, even small ruminants, play an insignificant role in the livelihood of the families interviewed.
In the villages surveyed, the following data on livestock were gathered for the different landholding groups. Although the number of animals of all kinds increases as the holdings get larger, it is worthy of note that there is very little difference between the 3-5 feddan holdings and the 5 feddan+ holdings, with the larger landholders having fewer cattle, small ruminants and chickens. These differences may well be due to the small sample: in particular with respect to chickens it is likely that in the 3-5 feddan bracket at least one industrial producer was interviewed as one village in which only 4 people were interviewed reported an average ownership of over 100 chickens.
Other Income-Earning Activities
Only the larger landholders can live exclusively from farming: this
involves those owning 3 feddan and over, while those who are tenants on
a substantial part of their 3 feddan also need supplementary sources of
income: in the cases described this comes from labour wages, and employment
in the civil service, but primarily from their livestock earnings.
For those having between 1 and 3 feddan, although agriculture provides about half the staple crop consumed in the course of the year, with a minimum of 4 months and a maximum of 9, the main source of income is agriculture in 12 villages, while in the others daily wage labour has become more important and in one case civil service employment is the main source of income for the villagers interviewed.
For those with smaller holdings and the landless, casual seasonal labour in agriculture is the most important source of income locally. In addition unskilled labour in building and any other work is the main activity off-season alongside migration to the Northern cities of Egypt.
The landless are available for work as wage labourers on a permanent basis. They reported finding work about 10 days per month on average both locally in agriculture and elsewhere in the country. Those with small holdings are also available for wage labour during much of the year, i.e. at all times except during the peak labour demand in agriculture.
All villages were reported to have some carpentry and ironmongery workshops, some reported tailors as well, and most probably had other workshops as well although they have not been reported. There are no forest products to be gathered in the project area. Fishing was seen to have some importance but insignificant as an economic activity.
There were no specific data on handicraft and other activities, though pottery is manufactured, and basket work is also carried out in the area. Akhmeem is famous for its weaving and embroidery of silk and cotton and this is a medium level scale of enterprise whose potential for expansion should be further investigated.
Constraints at Village Level with Production Systems
The most frequently quoted problems throughout the villages were: the
lack of small income-generating projects, unemployment, problems with irrigation
and drainage; the unavailability of reasonably priced fertilizers and credit,
and the inadequacy of health and education services. These and other constraints
are either general, affecting people in all situations within the production
system or specific, affecting certain people in particular.
A number of constraints were presented by people throughout the production systems:
Typical Households
Landless Labourers: These households are reported to form the majority of households in the villages studied. Their only sources of income are daily wage labour in agriculture or building, internal migration, and petty trading. They find work for about 10 days a month, according to some reports. The men from some of these families work on the fields of the large landowners. Their income is also very dependent on seasonal labour demand and the only time they can be assured of work is in the peak periods of demand for agricultural labour. Average household labour force in this group is 1.2 persons.
They have insignificant numbers of livestock, usually only domestic fowl, which are used for home consumption on special occasions but more frequently sold when the need for cash is particularly acute.
They are poor, having a very low income. Their poverty makes it impossible for them to invest in their children's education, and the children often stay out of school to contribute towards the family's income earning potential. Internal migration on a seasonal basis as casual workers is their best opportunity of improving their living standards, or at least of surviving. International migration is beyond their means as they lack the funds necessary for the initial investment to leave. In addition their lack of education, as they are usually illiterate, is a further constraint to improving their living standards.
On the whole this group's living standards are falling, due to the worsening employment situation which results from the rapidly increasing labour force in a context where few, if any, additional employment opportunities are created and the prices of basic commodities is rising. Their poverty is extreme and the number of days work per year of this group is static or falling, both locally and in the cities.
Tenants and smallholders up to 3 feddan: Tenants and smallholders work their own agricultural land but have to supplement this income from wage labour, livestock raising, and internal migration as their agricultural work provides at best half of their basic staples. The average labour force in the households holding less than 1 feddan is 1.9 persons, of whom 1.3 are available for off-farm work, while in the 1-3 feddan group, the labour force is 2.4 of whom 1.2 are available for off-farm work. Most of these households have one large ruminant, and 2 or 3 small ruminants, whose produce are used for family consumption. The small ruminants are used as a resource for cash when needed as they can be easily sold. Their holdings of small fowl and poultry are their main regular source of cash alongside daily wage labour in the non-agricultural season. In this group, there are a few civil servants, and joining the civil service is a widespread ambition.
Their living standards are low as their income is insufficient and not secure. Their ability to keep their children in primary school is uncertain; intermediate and secondary education are extremely rare for the children of these families. These households are at risk of becoming landless: any unexpected major necessary expenditure could be a serious problem, such as, for example, bad health. The tenants among them are particularly fearful of the prospect of the new Land Tenure status which will be introduced in 1997. The lack of unskilled and semi-skilled employment opportunities in any field is a serious concern for this group.
This group includes many who are involved in internal migration, either on a seasonal basis or with one member of the family who is away most of the year. A few of them have been able to raise the funds for international migration to the Gulf states.
The vast majority of this group find that their living standards are dropping and their situation is worsening, due to the small size of their holdings, which are getting even smaller as a result of inheritance, and to the lack of off-farm employment opportunities. Only in 2 of the 16 villages interviewed is the standard of living of this group rising rather than falling: these are Tunis where many of these people work in the civil service and this village is close to Sohag city, and al Essawyia where stone cutting is an important activity which is comparatively well-paid.
Medium landholders 3-5 feddan: They cultivate a variety of crops on their fields, and those who own all their land are in a position to market some of their production. The average labour force in these families is 2.2 people. Households supplement their income from livestock and additional work, such as in the civil service. Their livestock raising provides enough cash to supplement their crop production, and they are able occasionally to invest in small livestock fattening or bee-keeping projects. Their small ruminants are also sufficient to provide cash as necessary.
Their living conditions are acceptable, family nutrition is adequate, and they are mostly able to keep their children at school, sending them to intermediate or even secondary school, and this is their main investment for the future.
Living standards for this group appear, on the whole, to be improving, according to the people interviewed. This is largely due to the increased income from migration, both internal and international. The main risks they are exposed to are:
Landlords with over 5 feddan: The living conditions of these people are characterized by comfortable economic and social conditions despite the fact that the labour force of the household seems to be quite small, at 1.7 persons. Economically, they cultivate a wide variety of crops, employing daily wage workers on their own fields, as well as renting out some of their land in the free market, either seasonally or annually. They market most of their produce. Their livestock keeping includes fattening of large ruminants as well as raising of small ruminants for the market. They have the financial ability to invest in additional projects, in particular livestock fattening, medium scale poultry raising, or the reclamation of new lands in the villages where this possibility exists. They are also the owners of orchards where these exist, which is a significant additional source of income.
- division of their land into smaller holdings over the generations
- lack of sources of off-farm income locally
- reduced migration possibilities.
They build modern houses with all facilities, including modern consumer durables. They invest in their children's education and the latter study up to advanced stages of the education system. They can also invest in construction in the mother village or in town. It is in this group that the majority of the village leadership are found. The living standards of this group are rising in all villages.
Sources of Differentiation Between Households
The main causes of poverty are the following:
Impact of the study. By interviewing villagers from different socio-economic strata, Government implementing agencies became aware that the priorities of women and the poorest were not identical with those of village leaders. Initially the leaders emphasized projects that were mainly of interest to themselves and the upper stratum of the population (such as telephone, secondary school, electrification or irrigation), whereas the top priority of women and the landless was small livestock and off-farm income-generating activities. As a result of the study, consensus shifted towards activities of interest to a broader spectrum of the population.
Lessons learnt. Through separate meetings, women expressed problems and priorities which differed from those of men. But when villagers were asked to combine all identified priorities in a single list and to select the top 3 priorities, women's proposals were rarely reflected in the top 3. To ensure that women's proposals are funded, there seems to be a need to earmark a share of the rural development fund exclusively for them.
Application of findings. These findings were used to: identify target groups and suggest targeting mechanisms; and to organize stakeholder workshops to feed back the results of the study to project planners and to the project formulation team.