Revolutionary farming: Kamshish breathes in freedom and creates a farmers' union

Free of the restrictions of the police state, farmers in rural Egypt break new ground by forming official Egyptian farmers' union

This year is different in Kamshish, located 20km from Kafr Meselha, the birthplace of former President Hosni Mubarak, and 8km from the village of his predecessor, President Anwar Al-Sadat, which is better-known as a stronghold of resistance against feudalism before the Land Reform Law (9 September, 1952). At the beginning of the week, the village marked the 45th anniversary of the death of Salah Hussein, the hero of the farmers in the battle with the feudalist Al-Fiqi family, by founding the Union of Egyptian Farmers (UEF).
It is now breathing easily in the absence of a security siege or the shadow of a single policeman. In fact, one of the banners hanging in the marquee next to the home of the sponsor of the founding conference – leading leftist activist Shahinda Maqlad, Hussein's widow and partner in his crusade – praises Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. Attendees were given flyers with a picture of Sharaf meeting on 12 April with a delegation of farmers, including Haj Abdel-Meguid El-Khouli, the temporary chairman of the UEF.
The empty lot where the conference marquee was set up is surrounded with packed houses built with red bricks blocking the horizon and the view of the fields. It demonstrates diminishing agricultural land and wasted soil. Official statistics estimate wasted agricultural land in rural areas at 760,000 feddans over the past 30 years of Mubarak's rule. This is one of a long list of chronic problems which farmers suffer from and which were included in the founding declaration of the UEF. The declaration also unveiled a plan to create a democratic co-op movement managed by the farmers themselves, and establishing the principles of national development in order to reach self-sufficiency for food and demand rewarding prices for agricultural crops.
The notion of a union began in 1983 when 316 farmers from 15 governorates declared its creation; however, restrictions by the police state obstructed the licensing process for 28 years. After the January 25 Revolution, there is a general sense of relief to some extent that these restrictions will be lifted and that there is a better chance of founding independent farmers' organisations. About 1,000 farmers are estimated to be the founding members of the UEF, whose representatives from several governorates attended the Kamshish conference. Minya farmers declared their readiness to host the new conference in one of their villages at the end of this month.
This UEF is only one of many initiatives underway in Egypt since the January 25 Revolution aimed at organizing farmers. At the Kamshish conference, Mohamed Abdel-Qader, a farmer who owns land in Nubariya, spoke in his capacity as a founding member of the Syndicate of Egyptian Farmers (SEF). Abdel-Qader said that he submitted an application number 466/2 to create the SEF on 11 April, 2011. He told around 200 farmers and supporters who came from Cairo to participate in the conference about the trials and tribulations of his attempt to create the syndicate since the 1990s. “I went to Mr. Safwat El-Sharif in 1996 and he ripped up my application and threw it in my face,” he recalled. “After that I went to Mrs Aisha Abdel-Hadi, the minister of labour, but she mocked me and said ‘it would be better for you to electrocute yourself'.”
But the upsurge in attempts to establish independent organisations for farmers now goes beyond an initiative for a union here or a syndicate there. When the new Minister of Labour Ahmed El-Boraie signed the declaration of principles of syndicate freedoms with the International Labour Organisation, included in these principles was the registration of these organisations just by notification. Karam Saber, the director of Al-Ard Centre focused on farming issues, said that in Cairo the collapse of the security apparatus and the overthrow of the National Democratic Party (NDP) allowed farmers to begin creating a variety of organizations to defend their rights. “On 28 February, 2011, another farmers' syndicate was announced at the press syndicate, recognising farming as a profession,” Saber said. “It is headed by Bashir Ghoneim, and seeks to enlist agricultural engineers, farmers and all those who work in this sector.”
He added that there is another project to create an independent farmers' syndicate with the technical and legal assistance of Al-Ard Centre to work with leading farmers in ten governorates. This syndicate focuses on helping small-scale farmers (owning less than five feddans of old land and ten feddans of reclaimed land) and farmers who do not own or rent land. First, it will create syndicates at the level of villages which would all come under the umbrella of a union at the level of governorates, which would eventually become a syndicate across the entire country. This is a process of building from the bottom up, Saber explained.
Although Egyptian farmers have been held back for decades from creating democratic independent organisations in comparison to farmers around the world, including in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Egypt's new farmers' movement and its many initiatives is well-grounded. It is rooted in a legacy of resistance, which included the death of the hero of Kamshish, Salah Hussein, in 1966.
Since the application of a law deregulating the relationship between landlords and tenants for agricultural land in 1997, the average number of victims of violence in land disputes is estimated at 100 dead, 1,000 injured and 3,000 detainees per year, according to Al-Ard statics. The infamous incident of the farmers of Sarando in Beheira and the death of farmer Nafisa El-Marakbi due to brutal torture by security forces and members of the State Security Agency in 2005 is one such incident.
Official statistics on the number of farmers, farm workers and distribution of agricultural land ownership are inaccurate because of negligence and not being updated over the past two decades. Saber estimated the number of farm workers at three million and small-scale farmers at six million; large-scale farmers are no more than one million and are found across 4,500 villages, townships and hamlets. About 90 per cent of these lack sewage systems and half of them suffer shortages in potable water. Illiteracy rates are higher in rural areas, where 57 per cent of the Egyptian population live, and stand at 50 per cent illiteracy. This is a heavy load for the new government to shoulder after 40 years under Sadat and Mubarak.
Kamshish residents are estimated to number 20,000 and its agricultural land is 1,800 feddans, divided between about 2,000 owners. The largest ownership share is no more than 30 feddans, belonging to a member of the Fiqi family who is an absent owner, and the only other remnants of the family are two abandoned palaces. There are also legal disputes between landowners and tenants over 600 feddans of the village's land.
“Kamshish was lucky; we had potable water before the 1952 revolution,” stated Ahmed Nabil Maqlad, a member of the village's local council and a founding member of the UEF. “But until today, like other Egyptian villages, it suffers from lack of sewage systems and the control of NDP members over the majority of local council seats which already have limited powers.”
The problems awaiting independent farmers' organisations go beyond that, however. Considering the demise of co-ops in villages at the hands of bureaucracy and representatives of large landowners, these organisations are required – according to farmers attending the Kamshish conference – to assist in providing seeds and insecticide, marketing crops at reasonable prices, and other tasks. Farmers are not calling for “new agricultural reform” or making demands on the military which carried out agricultural reform two months after their revolution in 1952. The focus is on independent and democratic representation of farmers to resolve pressing issues.
The problems of farmers affects Egypt's food security, and speakers at the Kamshish conference discussed how to reach self-sufficiency from wheat crops and planting new varieties of rice. The declaration creating the UEF adopted the slogan, “Farmers can save Egypt from starvation and dependence”. This concept is advocated in the famous book The Egyptian Peasant authored by Father Henry Ayrut which states that farmers are “the lifeline of Egypt and the core of its existence.” Since the first edition of the book in 1938, Ayrut defined the farmer in Egypt as the small-scale farmer and the hired farm worker. Unfortunately, neither category of framer has had any political or union representation, until the developments of today.