Approximately 32,500,000 people live in Egypt. Peasant farmers called fellahin make up over 60 percent of the population. But less than 4 percent of Egypt's land is suitable for farming. Before the leaders of the 1952 revolution introduced land reform, less than 2 percent of the landowners owned half of the land available for farming. Most of the fellahin were tenants or owned very tiny farms. A man who owned 3 to 5 acres was considered well-off. Now no one is permitted to own more than 50 acres, and the average Egyptian farm is generally much smaller than that.
An Egyptian farmer's main tools are the hoe, a simple plow, and the sakia, or waterwheel. …
