Historian Judith Tucker has described nineteenth century…

Historian Judith Tucker has described nineteenth century Egypt as a time when the peasants were transformed from independent producers with rights to use the land to landless peasants forced to work as wage-laborers or to migrate to the cities where they became part of the urban dispossessed.

The development of capitalist agriculture and a monetized rural economy spelled disaster for many peasants.

Despite land laws like those of Said in 1855 and 1858, which gave peasants legal ownership of their plots, peasant land loss has occurred at an unprecedented rate, chiefly because of indebtedness.

Forced to borrow at high rates of interest to get the seed and animals necessary for sowing and to pay monthly installments on their taxes, the peasants have to repay these loans at harvest time when the prices are lowest.