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

This book addresses the impact of labor emigration, the structure and functioning of agricultural labor markets, and the causes and consequences of farm mechanization in Egypt. It argues that agricultural mechanization and government policy are very closely intertwined.