ABSTRACT
There is perhaps no other country in the Middle East whose rural economy has changed as rapidly as Libya’s. Only as recently as 1952, two knowledgeable writers explain the initial situation.1 In his survey, an FAO agricultural expert, O. Wheatley, says, ‘Exports of livestock and its products (sheep, goats, unwashed wool and cereals) are essential for imports and they are likely to remain the backbone of the economy and the people of Libya in the near future’. At the same time an international economist, Benjamin Higgins, ranked Libya among the poor underdeveloped countries, and estimated its average annual per capita income at only US$50. At that time, the entire economy and lives of the people depended upon one single sector, agriculture, in which the tribal system was dominant, and until 1960 the pastoral nomads represented 57 per cent of the total agricultural population and 40 per cent of total cultivated land was held communally by the tribes. The tribal pasture land comprised pasture which was state property but its use by nomads was subject to customary rules. Furthermore, only 5 per cent of the total arable area was irrigated and most was held by the former Italian settlers. It was also reported that agricultural products, particularly cereals, vegetables and peanuts, were dependent upon the uncertain rainfall. During Italian rule, about 12 per cent of land growing cereals was converted to tobacco and vineyard cultivation; the latter was for making wine, which was against Islamic principles, which prohibited the drinking of alcohol.2
