The situation both before and after the socialist land reforms shows a
predominance of smallholders (owning less than 5 feddans). In 1995 they
constituted 96 per cent of all landowners. The area cultivated by them
increased considerably from just over one-third to 57 per cent. However,
for a realistic assessment of the reform measures one must consider the
actual size of the land owned by the smallholders. This increased only from
an average of 0.8 feddans to 0.9 feddans, so that the economic situation
of single households was still critical. In Figure 8.3 the Lorenz curve of
land ownership distribution before 1952, in 1965 and in 1995 shows that
the land reforms had brought about considerably greater equity in the
1960s. A serious setback occurred in the 1990s, however, accompanied by
a dramatic increase in the number of minute landholdings. The reasons
for the extreme fragmentation of the holdings are the Islamic inheritance
laws prescribing partitioning, coupled with the great number of children
the fellaheen have. After the implementation of the new land rent laws in
1997, the situation improved slightly.