Damage through excessive use of chemical fertilizers After the Aswan High
Dam had been completed, the decisive phase of intensification of agriculture
in Egypt began. Since there were no more seasonal limitations of cultivation
caused by lack of water, more and more commercial fertilizers were applied
to raise the productivity of the land. While the natural annual fertilization
through river silt did not take place any more, the extraction of important
minerals from the soils increased through perennial cultivation. Egypt ranks
today among those states with the highest use of chemical fertilizers per
hectare, the others being mostly industrial countries with highly developed
agriculture. The main problem is that because of lack of knowledge or care,
the application of chemical fertilizers is often not only ineffective but even
counter-productive, so that already considerable ecological damage has been
caused (Statistisches Bundesamt Wiesbaden 1988: 44). Since after 1994 the
state stopped subsidizing fertilizers as part of the IMF Structural Adjustment
Programmes, they became unaffordable for most fellaheen, who began to feel
the loss of the Nile silt all the more acutely.