Deep Roots

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] 22

Family farming in the

Near East and North Africa

Ray Bush, Professor of African Studies and Development Politics at the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds

olitical turmoil and uprisings since 2010 have had at

their core demands for ‘bread, freedom, social justice’.

Most attention has focused on urban rebellions in

Tunisia and Egypt and Libya, but small farmer protests

across the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region have

been evident since the food price hikes of 2008 which intensi-

fied rural malnutrition, poverty and inequality.

NENA is distinguished by being the world’s largest food

importer, relying on world markets for more than 50 per

cent of its food. Price rises, particularly for wheat and rice,

have given a stronger rationale to the strategic importance of

boosting local production, and the largely non-food produc-

ing countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have

intensified the search for the purchase of land outside national

boundaries. All countries in the region are intent on increas-

ing incentives to agribusiness investors.

Farming and agriculture need to be placed in the broader

political economy of the region with a less restrictive defini-

tion of food security and the role of family farming within it.

It might now be time to ask if a new politics and social policy

is possible that listens to the needs of family farmers. There

is an early cautionary note: data on the Arab world is scanty

and generally of poor quality.

Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activ-

ity, and the “diversity of national and regional contexts” is

important.

Family farming is a catch-all term that is used

in the region alongside ‘fellahin’. Size is an important caveat

however. There are family farmers who generate agricultural

surpluses and those who are only able to eke out an existence

that may barely keep the family alive. Size needs to be meas-

ured in the particular historical and social context of the case

study under consideration and other farm and non-farm activ-

ity. In some contexts it may be also important to consider the

role that ethnic or tribal (loosely defined) affiliation plays in

securing continued access to land. Ethnic and tribal or family

affiliations may play an enhanced role or may become a lens

through which land access or conflict over fragmentation of

holdings is viewed. These forms of conflict are usually most

dramatic where access to land and rural resources are most

acute as in Yemen, Sudan and parts of Upper Egypt.

Family farming and food security

Three per cent of the world’s 500 million family farmers are

in NENA, where there are also acutely uneven landholdings.

Consumption levels are also uneven and malnutrition runs

alongside high levels of obesity. In Egypt, for example, more

than 30 per cent of children are stunted because of dietary

constraints, yet 35 per cent of adults are obese and there are

even higher figures for stunting among children in Yemen (57.7

per cent) Sudan (37.9 per cent) and Somalia (42.1 per cent).

More than half of farms are less than 1 hectare, but more than

50 per cent of the land is farmed by holdings over 10 hectares.

While 84 per cent of holdings may be under family farming they

only control 25 per cent of the cultivated area.

Poor family farmers

and the near landless are dependent upon wage work off-farm or

on the land of other farmers and their livelihood strategies, espe-

cially in female-headed households, are the most vulnerable. Up

to 85 per cent of all holdings are farmed by those with less than 5

hectares, yet about 6 per cent of holdings are 10-50 hectares in size

accounting for 40 per cent of the total holding area.

Food security

With the world’s highest dependence upon food imports, a lot of

NENA debate concerns issues of population growth and limited

land and water resources. Import dependency has sustained a

trade-based view of food security. This dominant narrative asserts

that food-insecure economies can guarantee food supply (imports)

by generating access to revenue to buy food on international

markets.

This strategy is premised on strong and vibrant national

economies, but high levels of per capita growth do not necessarily

guarantee family farmer interests. In Egypt for example, per capita

growth of at least 3 per cent per annum over 10 years up to the

2011 uprising might be expected to have provided a lasting and

sustainable platform for economic diversity and food security. Yet

more than 50 per cent of Egyptians live on less than US$2 a day

and economic growthwas partly based upon land speculation and

insufficient support to family farming.

Countries in the GCC have entered into land purchases in

the Horn of Africa, among other regions, to compensate for

lack of domestic food production.

Meanwhile, only 1.7 per

cent of the GCC’s 259 million hectares is currently cultivated.

If the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and GCC strategy will increase

agribusiness involvement in food production. This will likely

disempower family farmers and the deliverability of an alter-

native to food security.

Saudi businesses already have US$11

billion of investment in countries as diverse as Brazil, Canada,

Ukraine, Poland, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Second, globalization

of food production undermines the possibilities for countries

with structural food deficits and recurrent famines, like Sudan

and Ethiopia, to promote engagement with local farmers and

pastoralists to boost production for local consumption. Failing

egional

erspectives