The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 225)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 225)

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209
the whole country was about 440 millimeters, while in 1937, the comparable area
of 2,258,908 yielded the much higher 127,420 metric tons when rainfall! amounted
to 523 millimeters. The same applies to durra when comparing 1931 with 1939. In
1931, 939,686 dunums yielded 16,862 metric tons when rainfall was 439
millimeters, and in 1939, 937,087 dunums yielded 42,896 metric tons when rainfall
was 580 millimeters. The decrease in output of wheat and durra was even more
substantial in 1932 and 1933 when wheat output was 51,000 and 44,000 metric
tons, respectively, and for durra 15,000 and 9,000 when rainfall drastically fell to
an average of 300 millimeters in 1932 and 284 millimeters in 1933.'” As
discussed earlier, this drop in output was accompanied by a substantial drop in
prices or what we referred to as the “scissors crisis.”
An example of the detrimental impact of late rainfall (1.e., its distribution
over the season) on the output of wheat in spite of an ample 615 millimeters for
this whole season was 1938 when the area cultivated with wheat was about
2,085,000 dunums, which only yielded 44,000 metric tons.''* However, for the
'l3The use of an annual average for the whole country conceals wide variations
in rainfall among the different regions of the country where the northern areas can
get as much as 1,000 millimeters annually and some areas of the Jordan Valley as
little as 100 millimeters annually. Nonetheless, the rainfall figures cited give a
general idea of the relative availability or lack of rain when compared to the
average annual rainfall of 500 millimeters for 1901-1940 based on the observations
collected form twenty-eight stations in different parts of the country. The 1931,
1932, 1933, and 1937 figures are taken from: for area, Brown, “Agriculture,”
125; for output, Abstract 1944/45, 223; and for rain, calculated from Abstract
1944/45, Table 5, 10.
4 Abstract 1939, 39-41.
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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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