Post-Colonial Frontier Making?

TL;DR: Post-colonial frontier making in Egypt involves state land reclamation and the development of the desert frontier. Land reclamation became a way to solve social problems and support agribusiness.

Abstract: Abstract Chapter 6 details the second of three frontiers in modern Egypt: state land reclamation, or the state frontier. This frontier began to develop in post-1922 Egypt and under the food aid regime, which replaced the colonial-era food regime in the interwar period. The state frontier was devoted to land redistribution and state collective farming, both for subsistence and national urban markets. The chapter shows how state land reclamation under the Nasser administration informed the character of the third type of frontier, the desert frontier, beginning in the 1970s. Land reclamation developed a distinct character that remains; that is, land reclamation became a way for society and polity to solve a host of social problems from capitalist development. Also, when state reclaimed lands were sold to investors, agribusiness came to rely on state reclamation communities (of smallholders). One such community and its relationship to the corporate agri-food system today are highlighted.