ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the social conditions of existence in Kafr Tasfa and Kafr Saad, and by extension throughout much of the Delta, reflect a very uneven access to village and household resources. The perceptions of villagers serve to highlight the empirical and methodological failings of structural adjustment policies in agriculture. The chapter discusses the impact of the economic reforms on two villages. It describes the character of village and household access to resources and examines the various and multifaceted ways in which livelihoods are sustained and reproduced in the two villages. The chapter focuses on the uneven access to resources, land and inputs for production, access to markets, and the major problems that the villagers have targeted as requiring urgent action. The village is relatively small by Egyptian standards, but if it includes surrounding villages, it accounts for between 30 and 35 percent of the population of the entire Kafr Shukr area.
