The impact of agricultural development plans on the agricultural land settlement at the Jefara plain, northwest Libya

Abstract

This research is based on a critical examination and evaluation of the Jefara agricultural land settlement project in the north west of Libya, which was initiated in the mid-1970s. Following the Socialist Revolution in September 1969, Libya became an isolated and closed economy. The promotion of agriculture and industry became the main priority for self-sufficiency and a survival strategy. In particular, the development of agriculture had to be vigorously pursued through subsidies to needy farmers, vast injections of social overhead capital, and, of course, land reclamation and agricultural settlement. In its evaluation of the Jefara land settlement project, this study adopts both theoretical and applied approaches. On the theoretical side, the study lends itself to two different strands: (i) the cost-benefit analysis approach, identifying and measuring the shadow prices leading to estimates of the total willingness to pay for a given service/good; and (ii) the theory of growth and development. On the empirical side of the analysis, primary information is obtained from a questionnaire completed by farmers, providing the appropriate tools of analysis, and the means to compare and contrast the farmers' views with official statistics. The research concludes that in terms of social welfare, the land settlement project has been relatively successful in creating and settling new citizens. However, it is concluded that such settlement projects have primarily failed to operate as efficient economic units, since scarce resources have been misallocated and mismanaged.

Date of Award	1 Nov 2004
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Brian Snowdon (Supervisor) & Majid Taghavi (Supervisor)