Aswan Dam's role in revolution

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The Spark That Lit Egypt
February 8, 2011 | From theTrumpet.com
It is an explosive concoction that may ignite combustible conditions
around the world.

by Robert Morley

Two hundred and nineteen thousand: That is how many more people need
to be fed today. Tomorrow, the world will need to find food for
another 219,000. Population growth, unsustainable farming methods and
natural disasters are all taking their toll. But is there another,
more sinister reason food prices are soaring?

When food prices rise in America, many people gripe and complain, but
for the most part they make budget adjustments, go on food stamps, or
otherwise cope. In much of the rest of the world, people don�t have
such pleasant options.

In countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Eritrea, Sudan and Iraq, the
masses are already eating as inexpensively as they can.

Take Egypt, for example. Unemployment may officially be around 9
percent, but consider that one fifth of the population lives on less
than $1 per day. People have jobs, but barely make enough money to
eat. Conditions are worse in Ethiopia, Eritrea and other countries.

So as food prices rise�and they are soaring�fear can turn into panic,
rage and extremism, literally overnight.

In America, people spend about 13 percent of their income on food. In
Egypt, the average person spends a gargantuan 40 percent�which means
that many people are spending even more than that.

In America, if food prices jump 20 percent (as they have over the last
year in Egypt), that means that your food budget might go from 13
percent of disposable income to just over 15 percent�a rise of a
little more than 2 percent. But for average Egyptians it means their
food budget just went from 40 percent of income to 48 percent.

If it happens again next year, the effects are compounded. The fear
and rage is compounded too.

It wouldn�t take long before a person was spending all his income on
food alone, never mind shelter, clothing, transportation, etc. But as
the world witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt, countries explode long
before that point. Food riots can turn into revolutions.

And as the Middle East has proven over and over, it is the radical
extremists that come out on top. The shah is replaced by the
ayatollah. Lebanon moderates are replaced by Hezbollah. Gaza gets
taken over by Hamas. And when Mubarak is forced out, it will be the
Muslim Brotherhood�s opportunity.

In many parts of the Middle East, the food crisis is at least
partially self-inflicted (if unwittingly).

The roots of Egypt�s food riots go back to 1956 when Gamal Nasser
seized the Suez Canal from the British and French. At that time, he
said the proceeds would be used to finance the construction of the
giant Aswan Dam.

The Aswan Dam, one of the biggest hydroelectric engineering feats of
all time, transformed Egypt into a Middle Eastern superpower�but in
doing so, it altered one of the world�s most productive agricultural
systems forever.

The massive lake created by the dam allowed Egypt to expand its
agricultural production like never before. It turned whole swaths of
desert into lush, irrigated farmland. Food harvests jumped.
Electricity production allowed businesses and manufacturers to expand.
Egyptian standards of living rose�and the population blossomed and
bloomed.

Since the dam�s completion in 1976, Egypt�s population, which was
already rising, has more than doubled, from 40 million to 83 million,
making Egypt the most populous country in the Middle East.

But now Egypt has a problem: Its farming practices are destroying its
soils.

The problem is twofold. First, irrigation causes salinization. The
irrigation water from Aswan carries naturally dissolved minerals and
salts. What water is not used by the plants evaporates, leaving the
salts behind. Additionally, the mass irrigation efforts have raised
groundwater levels, which in desert environments also salinizes the
soil. Thirty-five years later, many Egyptian farms are becoming too
salty to grow food crops.

The second problem is that the Nile River used to bring new soil and
nutrients to Egypt�s farms with each flood season. After the Aswan
Dam, floods ceased. Consequently, the soils in the previous flood
zones have become less fertile each year. Now, massive amounts of
expensive imported fertilizer is required to grow food.

Additionally, the previously super-fertile Goshen region of biblical
fame is being depleted. Each year, hundreds of meters of Nile delta
are being eroded, since silt is no longer deposited from Nile floods.
Actually, very little water from the Nile actually makes it to the
Mediterranean anymore. As fresh water levels drop in the Nile delta,
and salty seawater intrusion levels rise, Egypt�s breadbasket is
shrinking.

The result is that Egypt has become the largest importer of wheat in
the world.

But part of Egypt�s food crisis has an origin outside of Egypt.

Back in 2005, with oil setting new all-time records above $50 per
barrel, U.S. President George Bush began his Middle East democracy
push (see Stephen Flurry�s February 4 column). At the same time,
America began a food demand push too with its Energy Policy Act.
America began a national program to turn food into fuel and begin mass
ethanol production, even though the technology required massive
taxpayer subsidies.

The Middle East might be able to blackmail the West with its oil, but
America, the world�s biggest food exporter, was able to do the same to
the Middle East by restricting wheat, corn and soybean supplies.

As more of America�s food acreage was diverted to produce corn for
ethanol, less land was being used to produce food for export.

Unsurprisingly, America�s big ethanol/democracy push was a huge
turning point for world food prices. Since 2005, corn prices have
risen an astounding 139 percent! Wheat prices are up 100 percent. Soy
beans are up over 90 percent. Barley has more than doubled. Sorghum
has jumped 110 percent.

But if rising prices due to supply constraints wasn�t explosive
enough, America�s weak-dollar policy threw fuel on the fire.

Since 2005, the U.S. dollar has devalued by 14 percent (as measured by
the nybot U.S. dollar index). At one point in 2009, the dollar had
fallen 20 percent. Since 2002 the dollar has lost more than a third of
its value.

With the dollar plunging, everything from orange juice to sugar to oil
(things priced in dollars) soared. Rising commodity prices, coupled
with the Federal Reserve printing money to devalue the dollar, and the
Fed�s willingness to lend money at near-zero percent interest rates,
also fueled speculation, further increasing commodity prices.

The table was set for civil unrest and popular upheaval. The drought-
induced crop failures in Russia and the droughts and floods in
Australia last year only heightened the problem.

And it won�t just be Egypt that is affected. The whole region is
desperately trying to cope with these same conditions to one degree or
another. The Middle East food crisis is a tinderbox waiting for a spark.

Food shortages are the stuff of revolutions. Unfortunately, the
history of the Middle East shows that, contrary to what President Bush
might have hoped, moderate democracies do not result. Instead, it is
the radical extremists that get power�and that is not good news for
America or the little nation of Israel.

To see where the whole region is headed, read Joel Hilliker�s article
�Will the Muslim Brotherhood Close the Suez Canal?� And for more in-
depth analysis, read the booklets History and Prophecy of the Middle
East and The King of the South. �
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