> [!info] Auteur : [[Max Ajl]] & [[Habib Ayeb]] & [[Ray Bush]] & [Zotero](zotero://select/library/items/HH3VMMDA) [attachment](<file:///C:/Users/kevin/zotero/storage/ADTXSW6X/Ajl%20et%20al.%20-%202023%20-%20North%20Africa%20the%20climate%20emergency%20and%20family%20farming.pdf>) Source: https://scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/03056244.2023.2267311 Connexion : # Annotations > [!accord] Page 174 > Development assistance promotes policies of mitigation and adaptation to climate change without addressing why family farmers have remained poor and how that poverty is reproduced. Understanding the impact of the climate emergency and the failures of policy to address it requires understanding North Africa’s uneven incorporation into global capitalism, including the political imposition of vulnerability, such as vulnerability to climate change, onto North Africa’s popular classes, a process which goes back decades.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=2&annotation=6A5NWNJZ) > > > --- > #Note/Colonialisme #Note/Subsistance > ^6A5NWNJZaADTXSW6Xp2 > [!accord] Page 174 > The shift from the 1960s onwards towards technologically intensive, and from the 1970s, larger farmer-oriented, agrarian policies has contributed to worsening rural poverty and structural import-export imbalances, while undermining the socio-technical agro-ecologies and forms of knowledge which could have been the basis for resilient and popular-based rural development policies (Akesbi 2014; Ayeb 2012; Bush 1999; 2014; Woertz 2017).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=2&annotation=SX2TI9U7) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture #Note/RévolutionVerte > ^SX2TI9U7aADTXSW6Xp2 > [!accord] Page 175 > The concepts of value extraction and accumulation are ways of understanding historical processes, including systematic waste of the natural basis of human survival. Reconstructing this history is necessary to clarify both the required changes, and who has sought to avert them and impose their own policies upon the poor ([[Ali Kadri|Kadri]] 2023).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=3&annotation=TQU3RFSK) > >[!cite] Note > [[Ali Kadri|Kadri]] argues that waste is not merely an externality of capitalist production but is deeply embedded in the logic of capital accumulation. He emphasizes that greater profits under capitalism are linked to increased waste, asserting that "waste expresses capital: greater profits require more waste, and capital reaps more as it sells the waste" > > > --- > #Note/Capitalisme #Note/Déchet #Note/AccumulationPrimitiveDuCapital > ^TQU3RFSKaADTXSW6Xp3 > [!accord] Page 176 > North African history can be divided into a series of overlapping periods: colonisation (1830–1962); decolonisation, post-colonial developmentalism and agrarian reform (1956–1980); state-directed capitalist development (1969–1991); and neoliberalism under the shadow of war (1986–present). Each country’s agrarian history is specific, but broad trends are visible. Furthermore, national agrarian histories are regional and global – shifts in rural relations of production intertwining with food import-export balances unfolded within broader political architectures. They were also shaped by the faltering restoration of national productive forces to the nation and often the nation’s poor: Egyptian effective decolonisation and Libya’s 1952 decolonisation were preconditions for Tunisian political decolonisation, given their roles as arms corridors and rear bases.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=4&annotation=QUCHNYTP) > > > --- > #Note/Colonialisme #Note/Agriculture/Agricultrice > ^QUCHNYTPaADTXSW6Xp4 > [!accord] Page 177 > Positive export balances went alongside mass poverty, especially in the countryside. In Egypt, large amounts of land were under cotton even as per capita cereal consumption was low and, through 1952, decreasing. Algeria exported wine and wheat to metropolitan France, while per capita cereal consumption was below human needs. Similarly, Tunisia exported hard and soft wheat alongside wine and olive oil under colonialism, while famine became endemic in its countryside. Such ‘primitive’ accumulation was the basis of accelerated Western industrial accumulation, tied to the climate crisis and broader ecological crisis. It provoked, in turn, Arab and North African national liberation struggles (’Abd Allah 1976; Toubal 1979).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=5&annotation=WGJ8DXI9) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureÉxportation > ^WGJ8DXI9aADTXSW6Xp5 > [!information] Page 178 > Developmental policies lost legitimacy, driven by rising repression of the left and the mounting discrediting – and later, fall – of the USSR as an external political pole. Finally, the 1990–1991 war on Iraq was a critical lever in shifting Egypt away from its remaining state-developmental policies and towards the radical opening-up of its agrarian system to global laws of value. Internally, the rising class power of the export-oriented agrarian bourgeoisie and the ever-widening ‘opening’ of markets further subtended the drastic reorientation of state agrarian policies (Radwan and Lee 1986; Faris and Khan 1993).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=6&annotation=5UDJ4CGS) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture > ^5UDJ4CGSaADTXSW6Xp6 > [!information] Page 178 > Land rent limits and tenure protection were dismantled in Egypt in 1992; Algeria shrunk its state-owned sector, in some cases opening up land for private purchase; Tunisia increasingly shifted its remaining stateowned experimental farms to private renters. Input subsidies were reduced regionally, a process of ‘betting on the strong’, and domestic price fixing led to ever-increasing convergence between domestic prices and world market prices, a bane for producers. Throughout this period, rural poverty became endemic, reaching close to 100% of the rural population in Egypt, and rising rapidly and disproportionately in Tunisia and Morocco.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=6&annotation=YZ966PJS) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture > ^YZ966PJSaADTXSW6Xp6 > [!information] Page 179 > These include extreme heat, deserts and dust, particularly in the central regions of Algeria and Libya. The Tindouf Basin, an area south of the Little Atlas in Morocco extending west and south to Western Sahara and east to Algeria, is dependent upon more than 90% of available water for agriculture. This makes livelihoods particularly vulnerable under the current distribution of resources unless there are strong adaptive capacity measures (ESCWA 2017, 43; Abumoghli and Goncalves 2021). There may be a 7 degree centigrade increase in temperature before the end of the twenty-first century; a 2 degree centigrade rise would lead to a 20% to 40% precipitation decrease.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=7&annotation=XPUTDECR) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture #Note/ChangementClimatique > ^XPUTDECRaADTXSW6Xp7 > [!information] Page 180 > Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities that are: a means of organising agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family labor, including both women’s and men’s. The family and the farm are linked, co-evolve and combine economic, environmental, social and cultural functions.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=8&annotation=I5AKXT7K) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^I5AKXT7KaADTXSW6Xp8 > [!accord] Page 182 > Food security is defined as the ability of countries to access sufficient income to purchase food on international markets. Production for local need is rarely emphasised, despite the evidence that small-scale family producers are the bedrock upon which food is produced: Worldwide, farms of less than 2 hectares account for approximately 84 percent of all farms and operate about 12 percent of all agricultural land. To make a rough estimate of the share of food produced by farms smaller than 2 hectares, or small farms, for each country (out of a sample of 112 countries), we multiplied the share of land operated by these farms by the value of food production in 2015. We then looked at the sum across countries to obtain the worldwide average (weighted by the value of food production), which points to roughly 36 percent of the world’s food being produced by small farms. (Lowder, Sánchez, and Bertini 2019, 13)[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=10&annotation=5PHHU2RU) > > > --- > #Note/Alimentation #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^5PHHU2RUaADTXSW6Xp10 > [!information] Page 182 > In Egypt, with a high degree of intensification of small-scale family farming, there is a contrast between the agricultural area covered by these farmers and their contribution to production. Small farmers cover about 35% of the country’s total agricultural area, yet ‘their contribution to production is about 47% of the national production of field crops (cereals), 61.3% of large ruminant production, 59.3% of small ruminant production, and a smaller proportion of horticultural crop production’ (Marzin 2016, 44). Widespread irrigation in Egypt creates the possibility for many farmers to benefit from three annual growing seasons.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=10&annotation=ZUDR7RDP) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale #Note/Pays/Egypte > ^ZUDR7RDPaADTXSW6Xp10 > [!information] Page 183 > The number of farmers with fewer than five hectares and their share of the total agricultural area in each country highlights the inequalities in access to agricultural land: in Algeria, they constitute 57.81% of all farmers but have only 11.29% of the total agricultural land; in Morocco, the ratio is 71.13% and 23.89%; in Tunisia, 54.46% and 10.55%; and in Libya, 49.43% and 7.72%. For Egypt, Table 2 shows a ratio of 96.97% and 61.51%, but these figures may be misleading. A more realistic comparison would be to consider the threshold as two hectares, which gives 91.76% and 47.03%. There is a clear correlation between access to agricultural land and theoretical poverty level.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=11&annotation=SWHJL9J3) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^SWHJL9J3aADTXSW6Xp11 > [!information] Page 183 > In the case of owners of more than 50 hectares, the ratios are even more telling: 1.91% of all owners own 22.72% of the country’s agricultural land in Algeria; 0.61% and 40.72% in Libya; 0.74 and 16.4% in Morocco (the age of the census – from 1996 – puts these figures in some doubt); 2.71 and 33.73 in Tunisia; and 0.07% and 13.41% for Egypt (here too, the threshold could have been set at 30 hectares or more).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=11&annotation=6CLBQQQE) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture > ^6CLBQQQEaADTXSW6Xp11 > [!information] Page 183 > Additionally, small-scale farmers use fewer chemical inputs and often reproduce their own local seeds. ‘However, pressure on land and water resources, combined with ... lack of other sources of income or climatic shocks, can lead to overexploitation of natural resources and less sustainable intensification of small-scale family farms’ (Marzin et al. 2016, XVIII).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=11&annotation=R66KGTCI) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^R66KGTCIaADTXSW6Xp11 > [!accord] Page 184 > Family farmers acquire much of what is needed for farming from nonmarket activities that remain robust during the climate emergency and help protect rural households from the power dynamics of local markets. Markets tend to register what is marketed, not what is produced. Examining this issue in Morocco, Rignall (2021) estimated there can be as much as a one-third difference between what markets register compared with what is actually produced by family farmers (see also Raikes 1989). Mitchell (1998) noted similar in an Egyptian case, where fellahin (peasants) were not keen to report to officials what was actually produced. Substantial amounts of Tunisian olive oil do not enter the market. Households produce food for their own consumption, and provide food adapted to local tastes for often precarious urban households (Ayeb 2017).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=12&annotation=W4WGIFGD) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^W4WGIFGDaADTXSW6Xp12 > [!accord] Page 185 > It acknowledges that small-scale farmers are among the most vulnerable to climate change as they are the most dependent upon weather conditions and land access, and very often have little contact with support systems and safety nets. Yet the World Bank does little to address the absence of family farmers and their voices and experiences from the formulation of IFI and government policy recommendations for land use. When they are referred to, family farmers are seen as an undifferentiated mass, and a potential hindrance or block to modernity, rather than the essential foundation upon which a development strategy can be promoted. The exceptions are when rural women and youth may be presented as a possible future market that is currently untapped. This emerges in Morocco’s Green Generation Strategy (Asharq A-Awsat 2020).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=13&annotation=ZNBIJZDY) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^ZNBIJZDYaADTXSW6Xp13 > [!information] Page 186 > While many policy initiatives have not been assessed as to whether they have met their declared outcomes, we note a policy continuity: the marginalisation of small-scale family farmers. This occurs amid trying to convert traditional farming systems to modernised intensive agriculture – which requires larger-scale, more wealthy landowners, renters and developers (World Bank 2017b; 2020c). The World Bank and national governments justify this by declaring the importance of food security, poverty reduction and improved rural livelihoods (FAO 2021).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=14&annotation=D8WQH4W8) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^D8WQH4W8aADTXSW6Xp14 > [!accord] Page 186 > The policy based on the international market, with the rhetoric of promoting food security, creates a permanent obligation to seek foreign currency that is only possible through increasing exports. The consequences of these choices are multiple and aggravate the conditions and relations of production: 1) a concentration of land that automatically dispossesses small owners; 2) an acceleration of the fragmentation of small farms, which is both the result and the cause of the impoverishment of the peasantry; 3) a greater ‘contribution’ to the climate emergency and the destruction of biodiversity.[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=14&annotation=ZMQY56YJ) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture #Note/NéoColonialisme > ^ZMQY56YJaADTXSW6Xp14 > [!accord] Page 186 > The period since the mid 1980s has seen neoliberal dominance intercut with imperial warfare, shaped by structural adjustment programmes that have transformed regional farmers, dispossessing many from smallholdings, raising input prices to unaffordable levels and promoting the growth of largely cash crops for export, rather than staple food crops for local consumption. Private sector-led growth has empowered large (and some small) entrepreneurs who have charged increased prices for essential farming inputs, accelerating social differentiation as smallholders and near-landless people have been displaced. Yet private-sector growth has been the mantra of IFIs, especially the World Bank and USAID, as the mechanism to improve agricultural productivity and regularise land use[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=14&annotation=2GYLQHS4) > > > --- > #Note/Agriculture #Note/Néolibéralisme > ^2GYLQHS4aADTXSW6Xp14 > [!information] Page 188 > In Morocco, issues around access to land and land use are driven by productivity concerns and a technocratic response to the perceived underperformance of small, marginalised farmers. Small farmers were not consulted about the Green Plan, even though 99% of farms are managed by family farmers, with just under 12,000 farms covering only 3.2% of the country’s agricultural land run by managers (Akesbi 2011, 28).[](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ADTXSW6X?page=16&annotation=9CKY9ZPJ) > > > --- > #Note/AgricultureFamiliale > ^9CKY9ZPJaADTXSW6Xp16