1. Cooperative Agricultural Settlement in Egypt and Israel.
- Author
-
Albaum, Melvin
- Subjects
AGRICULTURAL policy ,COOPERATIVE agriculture ,FARM management ,LAND reform - Abstract
This article presents an analysis of the cooperative agricultural settlement systems in Israel and the United Arab Republic of Egypt. It seeks to establish significant similarities and differences between the agricultural systems of the two states. Agrarian reform in Egypt provided the foundation for cooperative agriculture and its important developments. In Egypt According to the preliminary reports of the 1960 census, there were almost 400 cooperative settlements, with a combined population of almost 200,000 persons. In Israel, in 1960, there were 347 cooperative settlements and a combined population of close to 120,000 persons. In both countries the tendency has been toward an increase in the number of cooperative settlements and in the number of persons living in them. As more Egyptian land is redistributed, there is continuous formation of new settlements of the cooperative type. The new lands which will become available through irrigation schemes of the High Aswan Dam Project will obviously encourage further growth and development of the cooperative settlement system. Growth in the Israeli system has been greatly influenced by continuous immigration. The regional planning schemes call for the inclusion of new cooperative settlements, denoting an optimistic outlook with regard to cooperative settlements in Israel. Certain characteristics implied and discussed in this study distinguish the cooperative settlements from collective enterprises. The distinctions made by researchers M.S. Menon and Otto Schiller would support the use of the term cooperative in this study. In Israel there are two major forms of agricultural cooperatives, the kibbutz (communal settlement) and the moshav ovdim (cooperative small-holders' settlement). This paper compares only the latter with the Egyptian Agricultural Cooperatives of Land Reform (Al-'Gamiat Al'Taawoonia Lil Islah Al'Zirai).
- Published
- 1966