On the outskirts of Sheikh Zuweid village, east of al-Arish city in North Sinai, Ibrahim Mansour was sitting under an canopy and smoking while looking every now and then at a big pile of uprooted olive trees that used to cover his land before security forces decided to uproot olive farms in al-Arish in their “war against terrorism.”

On the outskirts of Sheikh Zuweid village, east of al-Arish city in North Sinai, Ibrahim Mansour was sitting under an canopy and smoking while looking every now and then at a big pile of uprooted olive trees that used to cover his land before security forces decided to uproot olive farms in al-Arish in their “war against terrorism.”

“Uprooting agricultural farms started five months ago in Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah boarder areas due to their serious impact on the security situation,” said the Directorate of North Sinai Security. “These farms have turned, by force, to hideouts of armed terrorists who are directing artillery attacks against police barriers and headquarters – especially the attack against the Karam al-Qawadis checkpoint on 24 October, which claimed the lives of 31 soldiers. Therefore, it was imperative to uproot these farms in cooperation with the armed forces.”

The directorate said that the uprooting of olive farms has greatly helped the armed forces in destroying hundreds of terrorist outposts and dozens of smuggling tunnels, as well as weapons stores, in a short period of time, in addition to capturing a number of dangerous terrorists.

Yet he said that security forces do not aim to remove all olive farms – only the ones which constitute a threat to public security— as potential hideouts to launch artillery attacks against police forces.

Eliminate terrorism, not us

 “We are not against combating and eliminating terrorists,” said olive farmer Mansour, “But the government that decided to uproot the farms, should have taken into consideration the affected owners of these farms. Olive cultivation and trade is the main profession of most people in Sinai. However, the war between the government and terrorists has negatively affected this profession which has recently collapsed, due to the farms’ adjacent location to military targets and the accompanying armed clashes between jihadists and security forces.”

‘Land of Olives’

Agricultural lands in North Sinai constitute nearly 132,000 acres, 100,000 of which are allocated for cultivating olives, according to official statistics issued by the National Agency for the Development.  There are approximately 3,440,000 unirrigated olive trees in Sinai, which makes North Sinai the number one governorate for trading olives in Egypt.

Half the land was uprooted

“Since the 2011 revolution,” Mansour explained, “Several olive farms were uprooted but on a small scale that did not threaten the livelihood of the people. Since the bombing of Karam al-Qawadis checkpoint last October, the uprooting process has been performed continuously and on a wider scale. Until now, 50,000 acres, or half of the total lands allocated for olive cultivation in the city, have been uprooted. Therefore, we were not able to harvest this season’s crop.”

As for the other half of the cultivated acres, he added, no proper market was available due to the instable security conditions in al-Arish. Farmers faced losses of up to 80% since they were obliged to get rid of this year’s production at cheap prices, due to the difficulties in harvesting and transporting the crop in areas experiencing clashes. Hence, harvesting the olive crop constituted a high risk which resulted in the accidental deaths of numerous farmers during the prosecutions and arrests of jihadists. Additionally, oil presses were also affected as they were obliged to lay off workers and raise their prices for lack of production.

Mansour also said numerous farmers whose farms have not been uprooted were obliged to sell their farms at low prices, but the buyers were not able to pay the full amount of their purchased lands since they were not able to harvest or transport their crops, due to the difficulty of movement between Sheikh Zuweid and al-Arish city where the roads are unpaved and unsafe in addition to the existence of barriers created by armed jihadists who constantly inspect the workers to ensure the absence of any soldiers among them, which makes working an impossible mission to accomplish.

We used to dream

“The security situation in the city has also contributed to suspending the olive festival which we held once in October 2011 and was supposed to be held annually during the harvest season, but the unstable conditions resulted in its cancelation,” Mansour said.

He explained that the olive festival, in which eight South Sinai provinces participated including Ismailia, Al Sharqia, Fayoum, Alexandria, Matrouh, New Valley, in addition to North Sinai governorate which organized the festival, was not meant to merely present the problems of olive agriculture and industry but to establish relationships for communication and experience exchange between the people of al-Arish and those who come from other Egyptian provinces or abroad, in addition to organizing contests for the best olive farms in North Sinai governorate. It was all canceled.

The government will investigate

The government, on the other hand, has not given any compensation or offered any suitable solutions to the affected farmers. Engineer Atef Matar, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture in North Sinai, said: “An estimation report of affected olive farms was prepared and will be soon presented to the government to compensate the affected land owners until they manage to find another source of income instead of the heavy losses they have suffered as a result of the security conditions.” He did not set a specific timetable to demonstrate when these farmers will be compensated.