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Egypt is seeing the flourishing of associations of irrigators, under the sponsorship of the World Bank. These groups are intended to revive collective irrigation at the scale of the supply canals, by cutting out individual pumps which draw directly from water coming from the Nile. The scheme’s official aim is to reduce wastage, increase agricultural productivity and regenerate social structures that are breaking down. However, it can be considered that the objective is to prepare for a water pricing system that would benefit more capitalist-based farming. This process is compared with that in India, where these irrigators’ associations also exist, and whose development also prompts the thought that for the State it is a way of passing part of its budgetary responsibilities on to the farmers, but nevertheless appears to indicate a more democratic evolution. The comparative approach can thus allow side-by-side examination not only of the similarities regarding places, but above all the processes under way which then take on a specific character.