Policy towards dynamic rural area in Egypt Project   | | North South Consultants Exchange

Policy towards dynamic rural area in Egypt Project  

Rural Development Policy in Egypt Towards 2025

Description

With the purpose to advice to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR) on preservation of socio-cultural values, bio-diversity, and general character of the old lands through income support to Egyptian small holders in old lands, the project was initiated as a joint effort by MALR and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Cairo.

The current small-scale agriculture in the Old Lands of Egypt (Delta, Valley and The Fayoum) is becoming marginal if compared to the modernised agriculture in the New Lands. The current or traditional agriculture in the old lands is performing quite well under the existing limitations of: smallholdings, labour intensive methods, traditional irrigation water application, etc. Modernization could improve the yields and volume of output, but that would be at the expense of employment, bio-diversity and it would also imply a loss of social and cultural values in the old lands.

The project is to explore the use of income support for the traditional farming community, in order to preserve the socio-cultural values, bio-diversity, and general character of the Old Lands. The objective of this study is to perform an initial exploration into the possibilities of using targeted conditional income support as an instrument for rural development in the old lands of Egypt. The main research question thus becomes: is targeted conditional income support a suitable instrument for rural development policy in Egypt.

The process of the study can be divided into four main phases:

  • Defining the proposal
  • Thematic Working Groups Discussion
  • Workshop
  • Report
Resource: Rural Development Policy in Egypt towards 2025

NSCE selected four main thematic fields related to the subject of the study:

  • Agriculture, Food Production and Land Use
  • Water Management, Biodiversity & Environment
  • Employment, Income, and Marketing
  • Policy Reform, Population, and Demography

Mid 2003, the EU adopted a fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which is a game changer for the EU’s farm sector and includes a revision of the market policy with reforms in the rice, durum wheat, nuts, starch potatoes and dried fodder sectors. Therefore, the project furthermore included the Study on policy for the monitoring pesticide residues (MPR) in MALR with a focus on biodiversity. The overall objective is to develop a monitoring and certification system in accordance with international standards so as to secure access to European markets. The study included a situation analysis and a survey of existing EU general MPR systems and requirements for five products (rice, durum wheat, nuts, starch potatoes, and dried fodder). It resulted in proposing a system for MPR including how, from where, when and by whom samples of plants, fodder and animal products should be collected.