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Libya
Land Use and Irrigation
Although statistics vary, only a very small percentage of Libyan
land is arable--probably under 2 percent of total land area. About
4 percent is suitable for grazing livestock and the rest is agriculturally
useless desert. Most arable land lies in two places: the Jabal
al Akhdar region around Benghazi, and the Jifarah Plain near Tripoli
. The highest parts of the Jabal al Akhdar receive between 400
and 600 millimeters of rain annually, whereas the immediately
adjacent area, sloping north to the Marj Plain, receives between
200 and f400 millimeters. The central and eastern parts of the
Jifarash Plain and the nearby Jabal Nafusah also average between
200 and 400 millimeters of rain annually. The remaining Libyan
coastal strip and the areas just to the south of the sectors described
average 100 to 200 millimeters of rain yearly. In addition, the
Jifarah Plain is endowed with an underground aquifer that has
made intensive well-driven irrigation possible. Between these
two areas and for a distance of about 50 kilometers south, there
is a narrow strip of land that has enough scrub vegetation to
support livestock. Desert predominates south of this strip, with
only occasional oasis cultivation, such as at Al Kufrah, Sabha,
and Marzuq.
Studies published in the late 1970s indicated that at any given
time, about one-third of the total arable land remained fallow
and that as many as 45 percent of the farms were under 10 hectares.
The average farm size was about 11 hectares, although many were
fragmented into small, noncontiguous plots. Most farms in the
Jifarah Plain were irrigated by individual wells and electric
pumps, although in 1985 only about 1 percent of the arable land
was irrigated.
Since coming to power in 1969, the Qadhafi government has been
very concerned with land reform. Shortly after the revolution,
the government confiscated all Italian-owned farms (about 38,000
hectares) and redistributed much of this land in smaller plots
to Libyans. The state retained some of the confiscated lands for
state farming ventures, but in general the government has not
sought to eliminate the private sector from agriculture as it
has with commerce. It did, however, take the further step in 1971
of declaring all uncultivated land to be state property. This
measure was aimed mainly at certain powerful conservative tribal
groups in the Jabal al Akhdar, who had laid claim to large tracts
of land. Another law passed in 1977 placed further restriction
on tribal systems of land ownership, emphasizing actual use as
the deciding factor in determining land ownership. Since 1977
an individual family has been allotted only enough land to satisfy
its own requirements; this policy was designed to prevent the
development of large-scale private sector farms and to end the
practice of using fertile "tribal" lands for grazing rather than
cultivation.
Partly as a result of these policies as well as the dictates
of Islamic rules of inheritance, which stipulate that each son
should receive an equal share of family land upon the father's
death, in 1986 Libyan farms tended to be fragmented and too small
to make efficient use of water. This problem was especially severe
in the long-settled Jifarah Plain, which has been Libya's single
most productive agricultural region.
The falling water tables in Libya's best agricultural lands caused
by overirrigation posed a severe long-term ecological threat to
agriculture. The government began to recognize this in 1976, and
took measures to discourage citrus and tomato cultivation, both
of which required large amounts of water. However, the more stringent
steps required to save the coastal water resources--principally
the regulation of irrigation and changing the land tenure system
to make it more water-efficient--conflicted with Qadhafi's concept
of economic equity, which favored intensive irrigated cultivation
of small plots for family use.
The government's overall strategy for dealing with the impending
ecological crisis has not been to reform the practices that brought
it about. Rather, the cornerstone of agricultural policy since
1983 has been to avert disaster by pumping large quantities of
water to the coast from the fossil reserves of the southern desert.
This project, the GMMR, was expected to cost US$5 billion for
the first two stages and has largely been spared from the cuts
in development spending that have delayed many other projects
in the 1980s.
The first phase of the GMMR, on which construction began in 1984,
called for the construction of a 1,895-kilometer pipeline to carry
water from the Sarir and Tazirbu regions to a holding tank at
Ajdabiya. From there the water will be pumped to Surt and Benghazi
for both agricultural and urban consumption. Planners anticipated
a total cost of about US$3.29 billion for this first phase and
a completion date sometime in 1989. The first stage is projected
to irrigate an area of 20,000 hectares for vegetables, and 50,000
hectares for cereals, and to enable the raising of some 100 head
of cattle. A second stage will connect the fossil reserves at
Al Kufrah to the system. It will also extend the pipelines from
Ajdabiya to Tobruk. Planning for a possible third stage, which
would link Tripoli to the underground reserves of the western
Fezzan region, and would extend the western coastal terminus from
Surt to Tripoli was also under way in 1987.
After completion of the second stage, the GMMR will be capable
of delivering up to 5 million cubic meters of water a day. According
to estimates, this amount would be sufficient to irrigate 180,000
hectares in the Surt area, to provide pasture for 2 million sheep
and 200,000 cattle, and to supply industrial and domestic needs
in Benghazi and Tripoli. According to the project's American designers,
the Al Kufrah and Sarir aquifers could sustain pumping at this
rate for 50 to 100 years without depletion.
Despite planners' optimistic predictions about the benefits of
the GMMR, foreign observers doubt that it will resolve the difficulties
facing agriculture. Whatever the size of the desert aquifers,
they are finite fossil reserves and will not last indefinitely.
Furthermore, the major agricultural developments planned for the
Surt region will do nothing to stop the declining levels of productivity
in the Jifarah Plain. In fact, the choice of Surt as a site for
massive agricultural development may have been prompted more by
Qadhafi's family roots being there than its suitability for intensive
agricultural development. In addition, urban and industrial demand
for water from the south is likely to increase as the population
continues to grow and as various industrial projects begin operations.
The GMMR's long-term impact on oasis cultivation in the south
is also likely to be negative. Many of Libya's showcase agricultural
projects are located in the southern oases that depend on the
fossil aquifers that the GMMR will tap. Developments at Al Kufrah
and Sarir have used advanced irrigation technology to grow wheat
and fodder crops. The depletion of the fossil reserves on which
these projects depend means that they have little long-term viability.
Given the extremely high cost and low yields achieved as of the
early 1980s, a re-evaluation of the economic viability of these
projects may well occur.
Data as of 1987
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