The Nile River Valley

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The Nile River Valley

• The Gift of the Nile

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The Nile River

• Almost 2,000 years after farming began in Catal
  Huyuk, people settled along the Nile River Valley
  in North Africa.
• The Nile flows through a desert.
• Each year the Nile overflowed its banks.
• These floods helped ancient farmers turn the Nile
  Valley into a fertile agricultural area.

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The Nile River Cont.

• The Nile is the worlds longest river. It flows
  north over 4,000 miles from the mountains of East
  Africa.
• It passes through modern Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan
  and Egypt to empty into the Mediterranean Sea.
• When river waters reach Egypt, they slow and
  spill over their banks and much of the silt is
  deposited where the Nile empties into the
  Mediterranean Sea.

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Nile River Cont.

• In Northern Egypt the river divides into several
  branches, forming a vast shaped delta a very
  fertile, flat land made of silt dropped by a
  river as it drains into a larger body of water.

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Lower Egypt vs. Upper Egypt

• Northern Egypt Lower Egypt it lies lower or
  downstream on the river (most fertile located
  near delta)
• Southern Egypt Upper Egypt it lies upstream
  (stone cliffs and desert sands)

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• What happened when the Nile flooded each year?

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• The Nile overflowed its banks and dropped silt
  to make Egyptian soil richer.

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High Water or Hunger

• Desert sand is unsuitable for agriculture!!
• The silt-filled floodwaters were rich in minerals
  and needed by plants!
• So While Egyptian farmers needed flooding they
  wanted the PERFECT amount.

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• Too much water means villages were destroyed
  farm animals drowned.
• Too little water means crops failed.
• Either situation disaster (starvation).
• This is what we see happening in Niger today and
  other African countries today

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How did the Ancient Egyptians Adapt?

• A Nilometer was built a special staircase
  with carefully measured steps.
• The Egyptians were able to measure the height of
  the annual flood by counting the number of steps
  covered by floodwaters.

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Nile Farming

• Flooded land began to dry in October and farmers
  planted wheat, barely, cucumbers, lettuce,
  onions, beans and flax used to make linen.
• Just as in the Fertile Crescent, the Egyptians
  used irrigation and used a shadoof to lift
  water into their fields.

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• For the Egyptians the Nile River was the center
  of life.
• Egyptians used the river for irrigating their
  fields and for transportation they depended on
  the annual floods to provide rich soil for their
  fields.

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What went wrong?

• While traditional farmers and nomads have been
  able to adapt to these environments, there is
  evidence that the introduction of inappropriate
  technology and land use practices have
  contributed greatly to irreversible
  desertification.
• While changes in the already arid climatic have
  created the potential for desertification, human
  actions have exacerbated and accelerated the
  process.

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Due to Human Action or Climate?

• Climatic fluctuations have not caused nearly as
  much reduced productivity and degradation as did
  human action and inaction, by local farmers,
  governments, multinational agribusinesses,
  international agencies and the industrial
  superpowers.

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• Director of the United Nations Institute for
  Africa, Samir Amin argues that the famine is not
  due to the drought. The drought has only
  revealed the seriousness of the situation, has
  aggravated it, but the desertification of the
  country by over-cultivating peanuts throughout a
  whole century has been and is the main
  responsibility for the deficiency in food
  agriculture today.

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The Peanut Industry Negligence?

• About a hundred years ago, French colonialists
  who controlled most of the Sahel, forced farmers
  there to grow peanuts for the French vegetable
  oil industry.
• Who Suffered?
• The African peasant himself who was compelled to
  work more to produce, in addition to his own
  subsistence, some peanuts, which were paid at a
  very low price.
• Peanuts also deplete the soil!! It disrupts the
  soil and it is eventually carried off by dry
  season winds. Too poor to use fertilizer the
  peanut farmers grow peanuts until the soil is
  exhausted leaving barren, unusable land.
• Results These factors cause drought which in
  turn, causes malnutrition and famine.

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What Can We Do?

• We must find a way to give back! Support
  Plumpynut! Give the peanut back to Africa!