Cross-Cultural Blog

Do you think that it is a good thing that the land is being changed back to farm-able land even though people are forcing to leave the communities they’ve called home for a long time? Where I live, the opposite is happening. I live in a small farming community, where farmers are continually struggling to make their farms profitable so they won't have to sell their land. When farms do get sold, many of them are bought by companies that subdivide the land and put up houses. When the land is subdivided, it is no longer producing food, which is not good in a time when more and more of the USA is depending on foreign sources for much of its food supply. These farmers are then forced to leave the land that their families have lived on for four or five generations.

Out of curiosity, how much money is the Egyptian government spending on generating motivation for moving people into the desert? Also, how much does it cost to convert the land back to agricultural use? I bring up these questions because we have a similar problem in Utah, but most of the agricultural land has been used for industry, especially refining and the soil and waterways have been/are being greatly polluted. And now we are spending a lot of money trying to clean it up so that we can actually use the land again.

Personally I agree with you about trying to reclaim agriculturally useful land, but are there other obstacles besides the cost and people's desire to maintain the status quo? like particularly are large industries using their power to prevent or delay this change becuase it would complicate their lives and decrease their profit?

I think your blog provides a good example of one of the many consequences humans now face because of one decision. What separates us from animals, and in some sense what makes us more evolved, is our ability to analyze a situation and evaluate the possible repercussions of our actions. For this specific situation in Egypt, we knew that there was a growing population. We then had the option of building homes in an area designated for farmland or one designated for homes. However, we chose the path that provided short-term satisfaction. The issue with forgoing a more difficult long-term decision is that we risk exposing future generations to new problems. While it may temporarily be cost efficient or easier to take the short-term route, we will eventually have to face the consequences. Your blog highlights a reoccurring, yet disturbing habit of humans world-wide. If we have the knowledge, technology, and ability to predict the impact of our actions on the earth, why are we continuing to behave in this way? Money is often the motivator behind these decisions, but what people must realize is that not everything is paid with currency. Because of the decision to populate arable land with homes and cities, Egypt must now spend extra time, labor, and even more expenses to correct the situation.

I think this is a very interesting dilemma. Most creatures find a suitable habitat and claim it as their own; humans claim a habitat as their own, and then make it suitable. This certainly alters many of the natural processes and can, as apparent, have much wider spread influences down the line on sustainability of resources, investment in arable or otherwise useful land, and the potential longevity of such planned living. Most habitats seem to have predetermined, standard rotations for growing flora, supporting fauna, and gradual change, but humans have this ability to manipulate it to our needs. It seems like a great thing, but is it reasonable, is it sustainable?

The situation you wrote about makes me wonder how much planning ahead is enough. Also, what should the balance between short-term benefits and long-term benefits be? When the populated areas were being built, perhaps overpopulation wasn’t a big problem yet and no one could have guessed the scale of humanity that exists today. So they didn’t plan accordingly. This situation in Egypt is the same all over the world and it brings about the question: how can we best plan for the future of our countries and the world when we have no idea what will happen in the future?