ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the technical changes which occurred in Egyptian agriculture between the two World Wars. It explores farmers' choices of crop rotation. The available evidence suggests that those already using the two-year rotation retained the system, and that more farmers adopted it. The chapter describes the quantitative and the "qualitative" evidence. It will appear that there was no large-scale "reswitching"; rather, there was further intensification of land use. There were three principal technical changes during the interwar period: improved drainage, new planting techniques, and the application of chemical fertilizers. All of these were complementary to use of the two-year rotation; they were changes which attempted to cope with the production problems created by the adoption of that cropping pattern and of perennial irrigation. The chapter considers the innovations in more detail.
