Three years ago, Abdullah Mohamed (a pseudonym) bought a plot of agricultural land measuring 17 qirats in Sohag Governorate, and agreed with the seller, before the purchase was formally completed, that the seller would relinquish the agricultural holding to enable him to obtain fertilizers and farming supplies through the standard legal procedures.

He subsequently went to the Awlad Toq Agricultural Cooperative in Dar El-Salam district to transfer the holding into his name and obtain an Agricultural Holding Card (also known as the Smart Farmer Card), an official document issued by the Ministry of Agriculture to farmers in Egypt to document their possession and use of agricultural land, facilitating their access to subsidies and farming inputs such as seeds and fertilizers through designated outlets. The cooperative’s first response was that holding transfers had been suspended, and he was told to wait.

The wait stretched to three years. The cooperative stalled on the pretext that the transfer window had not opened, forcing him to continue buying fertilizer from the black market at his own expense and absorbing the steep price gap. This pushed him to go directly to the Agriculture Directorate serving his district, where officials told him that holding transfers were in fact available, directly contradicting what the cooperative’s employee had said. He was also stunned to discover that the seller’s holding was still active and that the seller had been drawing on subsidized fertilizers throughout the past three years, as he recounts to Zawia3.

He says that when he returned to the agricultural cooperative, the story changed: he was told the holding was a “heirs’ holding” that could not be transferred without the consent of all heirs, on the claim that disputes existed among them. After investigating, he found that each heir holds an independent holding and that no joint heirs’ holding existed as the cooperative had claimed, and that the seller holds a holding registered in his name alone. The cooperative then claimed that the land was “unclassified” and no fertilizer was to be issued for it, even though classification, under the rules, requires an inspection committee to visit the land, determine the crop type, and set the allocation accordingly, with quantities varying by crop.

On further investigation, Abdullah confirmed that the land is in fact classified as planted with maize, entitling it to five bags per feddan instead of three, despite the fact that no maize has been grown there in thirty years. The law requires any classification to be documented in a written report signed by the actual farmer and the inspection committee. What happened, according to his account, was that data was entered at random into the registration device without any real inspection, for the purpose of meeting the system’s required quota.

“The previous owner of the land collected 20 bags of subsidized fertilizer in a single season,” he says, “despite having sold the land, which measures 11 feddans shared between myself and my cousins, while retaining the agricultural holding. This allowed him to profit from the large gap between subsidized fertilizer prices, at 260 Egyptian pounds ($5) per bag, by selling them at 1,300 to 1,400 Egyptian pounds ($25 to $27).”

He accuses the agricultural cooperative of covering up these violations by claiming a suspension of the holding and a halt to all input distributions, a situation he says gives rise to serious suspicions of corruption and collusion, particularly given that he holds documents, which Zawia3 has reviewed, proving the quantities of fertilizer that were distributed and the name of the cooperative through which the distribution occurred. He adds: “I filed a complaint with the Administrative Prosecution against the agricultural cooperative on charges of squandering public funds, received a case number, and am awaiting the outcome of the investigations. I also filed a complaint with the Administrative Control Authority, but it was shelved. I eventually turned to the courts, though the process takes years of litigation. I call on the Governor of Sohag to form a committee to address violations in the agricultural cooperatives and put a stop to the waste of public funds.”

His story overlaps implicitly with what Sherif Adel, another agricultural landowner in Sohag Governorate, recounts. Two years ago, he and his two brothers purchased an agricultural plot in Dar El-Salam district measuring one feddan, but the agricultural holding remains registered in the names of the sellers, who are the heirs of the land’s original owner, and they are refusing to relinquish it despite the sale being completed with official contracts.

He explains that after their father’s death, the heirs combined the holding in their names before dividing the land, then sold most of the area, which amounted to approximately eight feddans, to a number of buyers, including himself and his cousins. The holding, however, remained in the name of one heir, enabling him and the others to continue controlling it. Although Sherif purchased his share from one of the heirs under a legal sale and purchase contract, he was taken aback when he sought to transfer the holding: the seller disclaimed responsibility, saying the holding was not registered in his name alone, while the other heirs refused to give up their stake, placing all parties in a continuing standoff with no resolution.

He tells Zawia3: “The danger of the problem does not stop at blocking the holding transfer, but extends to the heirs drawing subsidized fertilizers using the holding card despite not actually farming the land. They collected fertilizer during the last summer season at four bags per feddan, while we, the actual owners, were denied our rightful allocation.”

He explains that approximately 70 percent of the land he currently farms is planted with clover, a crop for which no fertilizer is issued. Yet, he says, in previous seasons the crop was recorded as wheat or maize, enabling fertilizer to be drawn without any legitimate basis, which he regards as a clear instance of manipulation and fraud. He notes that he and his brothers filed several complaints with the agricultural cooperative and the relevant administration, requesting a field inspection of the land to establish the crop actually being grown. The cooperative set the condition that an inspection committee would need to visit, but the holders refused to be present or consent to the inspection.

“We hold a legal sale and purchase contract,” he adds, “yet we are denied subsidized fertilizers and the holding is not transferred to us, on the grounds that a court judgment is required. This situation, if it continues, threatens agricultural stability and opens the door to more crises and disputes.”

He notes that the dispute has, in the current season, resulted in a complete halt to fertilizer distribution for the disputed land, causing direct harm to the actual farmers, particularly given the large gap between the price of subsidized fertilizer, issued at around 260 Egyptian pounds ($5) per bag, and its black market price, which exceeds 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($19) and reaches 1,200 or 1,300 Egyptian pounds ($23 to $25).

He stresses that the problem is not an isolated case but recurs on a wide scale throughout the area, raising the prospect of escalating social disputes, and calls for clear government intervention to establish a swift legal mechanism for the automatic transfer of holdings alongside sale contracts, without burdening farmers with lengthy litigation.

Agricultural holding is defined as any agricultural land exploited for agricultural activity. Agricultural Law No. 53 of 1966, as amended in 2022, provides in Article 90 that: “A holder is considered to be any owner or tenant who cultivates agricultural land on their own account or exploits it in any manner whatsoever. In the case of sharecropping tenancy, the landowner is considered the holder unless the parties agree in writing in the contract to register the holding in the tenant’s name.”

Under Prime Ministerial Decision No. 4248 of 1998, the transfer of an agricultural land holding may be applied for through the Central Agency for Organization and Administration and the Ministry of Agricultural Reclamation and Irrigation, provided the applicant submits: a copy of the national ID; a written agreement signed by the current holder and the applicant; a copy of a preliminary sale contract (in cases of sale); a copy of a notarized division record registered at the Real Estate Authority or signed by the chairman and two members of the relevant agricultural cooperative; a copy of a final court judgment on the holding question; or a copy of a registered property transfer contract. The seller may also retain the holding as a tenant or usufruct holder. Where the holding owner has died, a legal inheritance declaration must be submitted, with the new holder declaring that they assume all outstanding debts on the land, including taxes, fines, and the like.

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Ezzat Hamdi’s story is not much different. He purchased one feddan of agricultural land in Sohag Governorate, a plot that had passed through three previous owners before him, a chain of ownership that has blocked him from registering the agricultural holding in his name and obtaining the Farmer Card that would entitle him to draw subsidized fertilizers from the state.

Ezzat recounts that the previous owners continue to hold onto the holding, and that cooperative employees are colluding with them by allowing them to draw fertilizers on the basis that the land is still registered in their names, while the new owner, who is the actual farmer, remains unable to benefit from the government subsidy. He says he tried to contact the cooperative to transfer the holding but was refused, since the transfer requires the consent of all the intermediary owners and previous holders before the holding can be registered in the current buyer’s name.

He tells Zawia3: “Wheat-planted land requires large quantities of fertilizer. Buying a bag on the open market costs 1,400 Egyptian pounds ($27), while the subsidized price at the cooperative is only around 280 Egyptian pounds ($5.38). The summer season requires five bags per feddan, and the winter season requires five bags as well. Being denied the subsidized fertilizer as the actual owner means I am forced to bear the full cost from the black market, which doubles my production costs and causes me serious financial losses.”

The manipulation of land holdings has reached the point of recording crop types inaccurately, or registering a plot under a different crop, to secure larger quantities of fertilizer. This manipulation sometimes occurs with the coordination of employees and the original landowners, Ezzat confirms. He calls for an immediate halt to the holding rights of previous owners and for enabling the actual farmer to register the land in their name to draw subsidized fertilizers and complete cultivation without additional burden, demanding official intervention to resolve the problem and end the collusion that prevents support from reaching those who genuinely need it.

The government provides subsidized fertilizers to farmers at discounted prices to ensure the stability of agricultural production and food security. They cover various types, including mineral fertilizers such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in balanced ratios, as well as biologically enhanced fertilizers that boost micronutrients such as zinc and iron to improve the nutritional value of crops. These fertilizers are distributed through oversight mechanisms to ensure they reach eligible recipients, such as Farmer Cards. Egypt’s annual subsidized fertilizer needs amount to approximately 2.1 million tons annually, out of a total of around 2.4 million tons the Ministry obtains from factories each year, according to Agriculture Minister Alaa Farouk.

Farmer Ali Abdel Gawad, from Tama district in Sohag Governorate, recounts that on March 12, 2025, his uncle relinquished his personal holding of seven feddans, which was deleted from the system, but was never added to his own account, on the grounds that the agricultural cooperative’s system in Al-Duweir village was experiencing technical glitches and problems.

He confirms to Zawia3 that since that date he has been going back and forth between the agricultural cooperative and the Agricultural Administration in Tama, and even met with the Agriculture Ministry’s undersecretary in Sohag, who told him his problem had no solution at the administrative level. Ali stresses that he has been unable to draw a single chemical bag throughout the entire year and has been forced to buy from the black market.

He notes that the employees offer him no help, blocking him from drawing inputs for his land, causing him to lose the summer season’s fertilizer, and leaving him anxious about missing the winter crop as well. He confirms that he has submitted all documents and paid all fees, yet he does not know when he will receive his Farmer Card.

In the same vein, agricultural researcher Mahmoud Ragheb explains that farmers’ complaints about not receiving their full fertilizer quotas recur consistently: they may be allocated a certain number of bags and receive only part of them, or be told to wait without clear reason, or have fertilizer disbursement made conditional on being forced to buy other inputs. He confirms that these facts have become widely known and circulated among farmers.

He points out that the core problem involves the overlapping of multiple parties in the holding and subsidy system, and considers that there are two wronged parties in this equation: the state and the actual farmer. The state distributes fertilizers based on registered holding data, which allows people who do not farm the land to receive the subsidy and sell it on the open market. The real flaw, he notes, lies within some agricultural cooperatives, where things do not always follow the regulatory rules, opening the door to illegal practices.

He tells Zawia3: “The majority of agricultural land is rented. The landowner holds onto the tenure while renting the land to another farmer, then goes to the agricultural cooperative to draw subsidized fertilizers, while the farmer who actually works the land is forced to buy fertilizer from the black market at inflated prices.”

Ragheb confirms that some farmers face direct pressure from cooperative employees, sometimes reaching the point of being asked for an unofficial payment to facilitate fertilizer distribution, while others withhold distribution entirely whenever a dispute arises with the farmer. He notes these practices place both farmers and the state alike in the circle of harm.

He cites cases in which some individuals own large tracts of ten feddans or more, rent them out entirely, then collect subsidized fertilizers for each feddan at low prices that may not exceed 250 Egyptian pounds ($4.81) per bag, only to resell them on the open market at prices reaching 1,500 Egyptian pounds ($29) per bag, generating massive profits from the price differential with no actual farming effort. He regards this wide price gap as the crux of the crisis and the primary driver of manipulation within the fertilizer system.

Ragheb believes that the solution does not lie in complicating procedures or loading farmers with additional burdens, but in enforcing strict oversight on both the agricultural cooperatives and those eligible to draw fertilizers. Oversight alone, he argues, can break the cycle of manipulation and ensure that support reaches those who genuinely deserve it, at a time when farmers are already suffering from rising production costs and falling returns, threatening the stability of the entire agricultural sector.

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Phantom Holdings and Phantom Censuses

The problems surrounding the distribution of subsidized fertilizers through the Agricultural Holding Card or the Smart Farmer Card are not confined to disputes among heirs or between land buyers and sellers. They extend to what many farmers who spoke to Zawia3 describe as phantom land holdings and fraudulent crop inventories, whereby certain agricultural plots are recorded as planted with fertilizer-intensive crops contrary to reality, allowing their holders to profit from the price differential on extra subsidized fertilizer quantities that then find their way to the black market.

Salah Abdel Halim, a landowner in Kafr El-Dawwar district in Beheira Governorate who holds an officially registered agricultural holding, says he has been unable to draw any quantity of subsidized fertilizer despite his land being actively planted with wheat.

Abdel Halim accuses the cooperative he is affiliated with of harboring a large number of phantom holdings, noting that he and other farmers have filed multiple complaints and demands for holdings to be reconciled with what is actually planted on the ground, but these demands have received no meaningful response.

He tells Zawia3: “The problem gets worse when the fertilizer delivery truck arrives at the cooperative. An unnatural crowd forms from the early hours of dawn, with young men, elderly people, and children racing to the distribution window in an attempt to reach the cooperative’s director. Priority goes to those with personal connections, relatives and acquaintances, as well as holders of phantom holdings.”

He reveals that some beneficiaries draw large quantities of subsidized fertilizers reaching ten tons, in exchange for paying bribes. He notes that those running this operation do not regard it as corruption but treat it as a form of patronage, with the official pocketing bribes that can reach 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($192), while the legitimate recipient is denied their rightful entitlement.

Abdel Halim explains that the scene repeats itself every time: by midday, an announcement is made that stocks are exhausted, with a promise to distribute fertilizers next time, but nothing ever changes. He confirms that the elderly, the physically weak, and those unable to push through the crowd are invariably left empty-handed and waiting in vain. He calls on the relevant official bodies to intervene and reconcile the registered holdings with actual ground conditions, on the basis that fertilizer is a state-subsidized commodity.

For Mahmoud Azzouz, a landowner in El-Fashn district in Beni Suef Governorate, the problems surrounding subsidized fertilizer distribution began worsening over the past four or five years. He recounts that agricultural cooperatives have taken to suspending subsidized fertilizer disbursement pending drawn-out procedures on the pretext of verifying the crop being grown, even in cases where the holding owner is the actual farmer. The recurring excuse from cooperatives is that stocks run out as soon as they arrive, pushing farmers to buy fertilizer from the open market at high prices.

He attributes this to phantom holdings that draw large fertilizer quantities with no actual cultivation behind them, while the real farmer is denied their entitlement. He notes that tightening controls on the black market has revealed the availability of fertilizers among traders in several governorates, including Fayoum, Beni Suef, Samasata, Al-Adwa, and Maghagha, in known makes and varieties with traceable origins.

Azzouz sees the real flaw as resting with officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, cooperative directors, and some employees, whose management of the system he describes as chaotic and arbitrary. He warns that if some owners continue to hold the tenure without farming, it will drive farmers away from cultivation and lead to a decline in total agricultural output.

For his part, Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the Farmers’ Syndicate, explains that subsidized fertilizer distribution is issued exclusively to the holder of the agricultural tenure, since the holding is the basis recognized by agricultural cooperatives for dealing and distributing production inputs, and the holding holder is not necessarily the actual landowner or the one personally farming the land.

He tells Zawia3 that there has been a direction in recent times toward replacing this system with an actual land census, so that whoever physically farms the land receives the fertilizers, provided the farmer holds a legal document proving their connection to the land, such as a rental contract or a sale contract, even a preliminary one, particularly in cases of land purchases. This direction, however, has not been fully implemented on the ground.

He indicates that the reason this direction has stalled is that the registered holding owner may deny the sale if the buyer does not hold a formal contract, which pushes agricultural authorities to stick strictly to paperwork and documentation. He confirms that the Farmer Card is only issued to the officially registered holding owner.

“A person who buys land and faces a dispute over the holding transfer, if they hold a sale contract, can resort to customary dispute resolution or the courts, and will ultimately obtain their right even if the contract was only preliminary and subsequently registered,” he adds. “Someone who farms the land without any legal basis or contract, whether by possession or otherwise, has no right to demand fertilizer distribution, because government bodies only deal in official documents.”

He also addresses problems related to holding transfers after the death of an owner, explaining that in such cases an inheritance declaration must be issued to identify the heirs, and that the purchase must have been made from them clearly, or the matter must go to court if the purchase was made from the deceased before the estate was distributed. He notes that some heirs may evade transferring the holding not only to benefit from the fertilizers, but sometimes to contest the sale itself or to financially coerce the buyer, particularly when there are multiple heirs.

Abu Saddam considers these cases to be limited in scope and not a widespread phenomenon, generally arising from procedural errors in the purchase process, such as failing to transfer the holding at the same time as completing the sale, or failing to include in the contracts a commitment binding the heirs going forward. He stresses that the contract is the legal foundation governing the relationship between the parties.

He clarifies that the holding differs from ownership: holding does not necessarily prove ownership, since land may be in the possession of someone in the process of legalizing their status who has not yet settled all outstanding dues to the state, resulting in a temporary holding without actual ownership, while ownership means the transfer of all rights attached to the land, including holding and taxable use.

On the support available through the Farmer Card, he notes that the actual support currently available consists primarily of subsidized fertilizers, along with the possibility of obtaining certified seeds or pesticides on occasion, as well as soft loans backed by the holding. Fertilizers remain the most important element of the support system, he stresses, as the price gap between subsidized fertilizers and open-market fertilizers is large, reaching around 15,000 Egyptian pounds ($288) per ton, which explains the intensity of the disputes surrounding holdings and the Farmer Card.

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Tenants Shut Out of Subsidies

According to agricultural engineer Mohamed Khedr, the problems surrounding agricultural land holdings and the Farmer Card stem fundamentally from the registered owner’s control of the holding, which is treated in practice as tied to ownership, giving them control over subsidy distribution even in cases where they are not the ones actually farming the land.

Khedr believes that a new buyer of agricultural land can, under the sale contract, compel the seller to transfer the holding into their name through the cooperative or the agricultural administration. The prevailing custom is also for the buyer to withhold part of the land’s purchase price until the holding transfer procedures are completed. The real crisis, he argues, is concentrated in the situation of tenants, who farm the land without a registered holding, leaving them unable to benefit from the subsidy.

He explains that a tenant can obtain their share of subsidized fertilizers if the owner formalizes a contract for them at the agricultural cooperative, noting that control of this process remains with the original owner, alongside the state’s shortfall in providing an adequate number of agricultural supervisors.

He tells Zawia3: “The principle is for the actual farmer to receive the support, but this principle runs up against weak agricultural census mechanisms resulting from a sharp decline in the number of agricultural supervisors. In the past, there was a supervisor for every 50 or 60 feddans, or even 100 feddans, which allowed for knowledge of who was actually farming the land. That role has now contracted to the point where there may only be one or two supervisors at the agricultural cooperative, or none at all.”

He explains that this shortfall also affects what is known as “holding classification,” whereby the registered holding owner goes to the cooperative to specify the crop types being grown, even if the land is in fact rented and the tenant is growing different crops. This leads to subsidized fertilizers being disbursed to the owner rather than the actual farmer, opening the door to subsidy misuse.

On the benefits associated with the Farmer Card, Khedr confirms that the current subsidy is limited primarily to subsidized fertilizers, noting that the price gap is large: the open-market price for a fertilizer bag exceeds 1,200 Egyptian pounds ($23) and can reach 1,400 Egyptian pounds ($27) during shortages, while the holding owner obtains it from the cooperative at a price ranging between 300 and 350 Egyptian pounds ($5.77 to $6.73).

“This price gap is the primary reason subsidized fertilizers leak into the black market. The manipulation happens as a result of the subsidy being disbursed to ineligible people.”

He stresses that relying on an actual farmer census and linking subsidy disbursement to tenancy contracts documented at the agricultural cooperatives would go a long way toward curbing this phenomenon, but requires increasing the number of agricultural supervisors or engaging other bodies in the census process.

On what is known as the temporary Farmer Card, he notes that it is generally granted in cases where heirs are in agreement among themselves, or to tenants for whom the owner formalizes a temporary contract at the cooperative, enabling them to benefit from the subsidy, a step that transfers legal responsibility to the tenant in the event of violations of agricultural regulations.

According to Dr. Tarek Abu Musa, a professor of agricultural economics at the Agricultural Research Center, phantom agricultural land holdings rank among the most prominent problems facing Egypt’s agricultural sector, particularly regarding the distribution of government-subsidized fertilizers through agricultural cooperatives. He notes that a great deal of land is sold for building purposes rather than farming, meaning the agricultural holding is not transferred to the buyer, which contributes to inflating the volume of phantom holdings: small qirat-sized plots accumulate to form feddan-scale areas, yet remain registered as agricultural land even though they lie fallow and are unfit for cultivation, a failure he attributes to cooperatives for not forming ground inspection committees.

He tells Zawia3: “The relationship between the owner and the tenant presents another problem. The tenant is supposed to be the one who draws the subsidized fertilizers and actually farms the land, while some owners draw the fertilizers and sell them on the black market, placing the tenant in a difficult position and forcing them to buy the same fertilizers at high prices from the open market.”

He notes that a large part of the manipulation is enabled by the shortage of agricultural engineers and extension workers at the cooperatives, and the absence of an effective extension apparatus to carry out accurate field censuses of cultivated areas. This gives some employees the opportunity to manipulate crop records and assign more fertilizer to plots planted with lower-input crops, such as recording clover as sugar beet or maize to obtain larger fertilizer quantities.

He adds that these practices negatively affect agricultural productivity, drain the state’s financial resources allocated to supporting agriculture, and reduce the effectiveness of government subsidies. He stresses that the solution lies in strengthening oversight of agricultural cooperatives, ensuring the presence of agricultural engineers and extension workers for direct field inspection, linking fertilizer disbursement to the tenant or actual farmer, and taking strict measures against any manipulation or administrative corruption, alongside the implementation of a precise and accountable census system to guarantee agricultural justice and preserve national productivity.

Dr. Khaled Fathi Salem, a professor of crop biotechnology at the Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at Sadat City University, holds that the fragmentation of agricultural holdings in Egypt ranks among the foremost challenges facing the agricultural sector, particularly in enabling the actual farmer to benefit from government support earmarked for fertilizers through the Farmer Card.

He explains to Zawia3 that holding fragmentation has resulted from the inheritance system, through which a single feddan is divided among children across successive generations, leaving each individual with a small area that may amount to only a few qirats, affecting the farmer’s capacity to organize cultivation and irrigation according to actual need.

On the Farmer Card, he notes that the purpose is to ensure that government support reaches those genuinely entitled to it, whether they are new landowners or tenants who are actively farming the land. The holding must transfer as soon as land is sold from the previous to the new owner through the agricultural cooperative, since the holding is a foundational pillar for organizing agriculture and regulating the distribution of subsidized production inputs such as fertilizers.

“Some farmers find it difficult to receive subsidized fertilizers,” he adds. “The old owner holds onto the tenure and benefits from the fertilizers by selling them on the black market, while the tenant or the new owner is forced to buy the same fertilizers at high prices, which creates an additional burden and affects soil fertility and productivity over the long term.”

He believes the Farmer Card allows for the monitoring and registration of cultivated crops, providing an accurate census of areas under cultivation and helping to curb manipulation and the granting of subsidies to ineligible individuals. The state, he notes, adopted this system to address earlier gaps and ensure that support reaches those who actually farm the land.

Salem holds that the optimal solution lies in expanding the state’s role in transferring holdings, increasing oversight of agricultural cooperatives, and linking fertilizer disbursement to documented contracts with tenants and new owners, so as to ensure the practical use of the subsidy, preserve soil fertility, and achieve sustainable productivity, particularly given the large differentials between subsidized fertilizer prices and the open market.

The facts and testimonies in this investigation reveal a deep structural dysfunction in Egypt’s agricultural holding system and subsidized fertilizer distribution, one that is not limited to isolated cases or sporadic disputes, but extends to form a recurring pattern of public funds waste and the systematic denial of actual farmers’ rightful access to state support.