Introduction

One of the many slogans of Egyptian protesters against the Mubarak dictatorship in January 2011 was ‘Bread, freedom and social justice.’ This was similar to the slogans in Tunisia by protestors between December 2010 and January 2011. The presence of the word bread in the slogan marks similar origins and progression of the revolutionary processes in Tunisia and Egypt. In both cases, the issue of sustained access to affordable food was at the heart of the popular uprisings. It constituted the core of the claims of millions of demonstrators who, in a few weeks, were able to defeat two of the harshest dictatorships in the region that were thought to be untouchable and unshakable.

Focusing on the food issue as a central element of the revolutionary events in Tunisia and in Egypt emphasises three important aspects of the uprising. The first of these is the importance of a longue durée view of historical transformation. This contrasts with the naïve mainstream reading of the events that reduces the origins of the uprisings to issues of political rights and freedom and an objective of creating liberal democracy (Abdelrahman 2012; Mazeau and Sabaseviciute 2014). We have argued that the sociospatial chronology of the long processes of discontent in Tunisia and Egypt were propelled from the most marginalised regions, including rural areas and poor neighbourhoods. The demands were first and foremost social: access to food and natural resources including land and water, employment, housing, health infrastructure and services (Bush and Ayeb 2012; Ayeb 2011a; El Nour 2015b). Second, the food issue highlights how the peasantry in both countries was particularly active in the resistance and contestation that characterised the long revolutionary processes (Bush and Ayeb, 2014; Ayeb, 2017). Finally, despite the clear differences in term of landscapes and agricultural structures, exclusive irrigation in Egypt and mostly rainfed in Tunisia, the process of marginalisation and impoverishment of peasants in both countries was similar. It had been fuelled by years of agricultural and hydro-political neo-liberal policies that largely favoured big investors and which produced similar political consequences.

This chapter examines peasant, agricultural and food questions in Egypt. We reflect on the long mobilisation and role of the peasant in the revolutionary processes, which, in Egypt had begun well before 2010–11 and which continue in the contemporary period.