After a long period of stability, Egypt’s agricultural sector experienced sudden change due to the 1973 oil price increases and Anwar Sadat’s Open Door economic policies. Workers left rural Egypt for the cities and high-wage jobs in the oil-exporting countries. The resulting “labor shortage†and rising real wages in agriculture coincided with a massive U.S. foreign assistance program that has been encouraging the rapid mechanization of Egyptian agriculture. This book examines changes in agricultural labor markets and farm technology in Egypt during the last, decade, focusing especially on the social consequences and long-term prospects of mechanization.
