The evidence that some of the best agricultural land in the state of Qalyubia, bordering on Cairo city, is being polluted flows in, along the Battah Canal.

The canal irrigates 30,000 acres of land and those lands, once renowned for the crops they produced and the farms they hosted, are slowly being ruined by industrialization. This in turn leads to a cycle of ongoing poverty as peasant farmers are forced to sell their land and relocate, or work in the factories.

The evidence that some of the best agricultural land in the state of Qalyubia, bordering on Cairo city, is being polluted flows in, along the Battah Canal.

The canal irrigates 30,000 acres of land and those lands, once renowned for the crops they produced and the farms they hosted, are slowly being ruined by industrialization. This in turn leads to a cycle of ongoing poverty as peasant farmers are forced to sell their land and relocate, or work in the factories.

“The water comes to us in colours,” says one local farmer, Mohammed Taleb, who is in his 60s, despairingly. “Once it was blue, several times it was green and now it is just red or brown all the time. It is a crime,” he states. “The land has become carcinogenic, the potatoes grow flat, the onion roots are rotten and anything we plant withers immediately.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can bear it,” Taleb continues. “I have had enough of illness, both my own and that of my children. I am going to sell the land. I am not going to resist at the expense of my family’s health.”

Ibrahim Hatab, another farmer in the area, tells of the area’s history. He says that before the Egyptian revolution of 1952 which saw the monarchy overthrown, the surrounding land was the property of a feudal family, the Shawarbis, and was watered using a system of ditch irrigation, where shallow ditches in the earth catch, then dispense water.

“And these lands were the main producers of vegetables and fruits sent to the capital,” Hatab notes.

After the 1952 revolution, the property was split into smaller parcels and the Battah Canal was built. However due to mismanagement, a growing population and the fact that, in the 1970s, the surrounding area began to be industrialized due to its proximity to Cairo, the standard of agriculture undertaken here deteriorated, Hatab explains.

And the urban sprawl and creep of industrialization has continued.

Factories now cut into semi-deserted farmland, properties have been appropriated for the building of highways and roads and the Battah Canal is full of contaminants. Farming is a sign of days gone by.

And the farmers sell their land to the businesses building factories in the hopes that the new industry will provide their children with jobs, Hatab continues. “But whenever a new factory appears, a piece of land dies. And now even more land will die because of the polluted water in the Canal,” Hatab adds.

Standing outside his café a main road, local business owner, Issam Mohammed, pointed at the Battah Canal, which flowed past in front of him.
“Around 20 factories discharge waste into this,” he complains, before listing exactly what comes from where.

Pipes from Mohammed Hijab’s printing plant discharge toxic fumes and fabric dye remnants, Ghabour’s factory, making spare parts for car maker Hyundai, drains diesel, grease and oil. Youssef Qanawi’s spring factory drains diesel too. Mohammed Qandil’s palm leaf processing factory discharges dirty oil. And, Mohammed explains, just on the other side of the canal, farmers and peasants are forced to water 30,000 acres of land with this waste water.

The café owner’s litany is interrupted by Walid Saad, a factory employee who also happens to be part of peasant family from the area. He has more to add: “Vehicles discharge liquid wastes into the canal and drivers also wash their trucks in it,” he notes.

Saad knows that the local farmers depend on the water for irrigation and for the groundwater for drinking. “The pollutants have caused low yielding harvests,” he says. “There are also many cases of kidney failure here.”

“From time to time officials, who are supposed to take care of this canal, come to check on the level of pollutants,” a local resident, Mahdi Yousef, says. “But we’ve never noticed any results of their work, or any changes. These kinds of violations have been going on for years. I think the only solution is to fill the canal up with earth.”

The Department of Agriculture in the town of Qalyub, the commercial hub for the agricultural region, says they are doing their best.

“We clean the canal twice a year and we analyze samples of the factories’ wastes every three months,” a department engineer, Khalid Tawfiq, says. “Some factories commit to our guidelines but others do not. In fact, we have given out several notices of offence to the violating factories. Those notices are then sent to the local courts. According to the law, and as per our monitoring, some of those factories should have been closed by now. But this hasn’t happened,” he continues. “And we’re unsure how to pursue this further. To be realistic, this is the limit of the Department’s responsibilities.”

Local farmer Taleb has an explanation for this inaction. “The owners of the factories have their own relationships with officials who work in the fields of irrigation and the environment,” he says accusingly.

And Taleb says the farmers have tried to adapt to the situation. ‘We are trying to restore our land by drilling wells and water holes and pumping groundwater in occasionally. But the land cannot be renewed,” he concludes.

Having observed the situation firsthand, it is hard to say what the solution can possibly be. The responsibility for the poisoned water must doubtless be shared between all those who use it and police it, including the factory owners, the state authorities and the farmers who are forced to sell their land due to lack of water, only to have yet another factory set up and start pumping pollutants back into the water – which means more farmers are affected. It is a vicious cycle and it is hard to ascertain who the winners and losers will be in the future.