CAIRO - On the banks of the River Nile a great civilisation emerged some seven thousand years ago when Egyptian farmers settled in the long narrow valley of the Nile. It was farming that gave impetus to other fields of human activities and, at a later stage, to the establishment of cities. As much as the ancient Egyptians were keen to expand, develop and innovate activities relevant to farming, present-day Egypt has a problem with agriculture. Farmers complain that the State has not paid due attention in the past decade or so to upgrading their conditions. While Farmers' Day, which falls today, is being celebrated at the official level, thousands of farmers have decided to boycott the celebration finding that they have no reason to be jubilant when their economic woes remain unresolved. Egyptian farmers, unlike workers, do not have unions to speak on their behalf. Perhaps the nature of agricultural land ownership, which is characterised by small acreage ownership, has separated rather than gathered farmers. However, the January revolution, which advocated change as a course to be pursued in all walks, has prompted farmers to found an organisation to represent them and put forward their demands. It was established on April 11 and some 650,000 application forms for union membership have been filled in, to date, Ahmed Abdel Rehim the legal advisor of the union told Al-Shorouq independent daily. The idea of such a union had tantalised the dreams of a group of educated young farmers years before the outbreak of the revolution. These enthusiastic farmers had bought five feddans [acres] each in Nubaria within a state project to create agricultural communities relying on land reclamation. The idea, however, remained unfulfilled until it became a reality on the ground three months after the revolution. The publicity needed to promote the union was basically carried out by these young land reclaimers, who managed in a short while to rally farmers in their respective governorates to join the newborn union. It was welcomed by farmers in the hope that they would finally fund an organisation that would put forth collective social and technical demands shared by the farming community. The union, therefore, is giving priority to issues such as social and health insurance and is suggesting a bill to be discussed at the first session of the new parliament. Fertilisers today pose a real problem to farmers across the country against a booming black market and a shortage of brands that are supposedly distributed via agricultural co-operatives. They will be one of the issues at the top of the union agenda. Farmers have repeatedly reported such market malpractices to the Agriculture Ministry but officials have usually turned deaf ears. The farmers complain that fertilisers are sold at LE l80 per sack on the black market at a time when its actual price is LE 75 in agricultural co-operatives. The enforced price rise has adversely affected the cultivation cost per feddan, ultimately decreasing potential profit. According to Mohamed Abdel Qader, the union chairman, the union will exercise pressure on the Ministry to maintain control of agricultural co-operatives. He says that unionists will call for a new distribution system, in which fertilisers would be sold to growers not to landlords, since some landowners are taking advantage of the present scheme to resell sacks at higher prices to real beneficiaries. Among the union ambitions is to establish a huge fertiliser co-operative project funded by farmers contributions in order to bring down the price. With the deterioration of agricultural advice and guidance under the former minister of agriculture Amin Abaza, the union has decided to launch a training programme, with the assistance of agricultural research centres, to qualify rural instructors that would offer technical support to farmers. As Abdel Qader put it these instructors would form a nucleus to train other cadres in towns and villages to fill in a long-standing gap in Egyptian agriculture.
