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Algeria rebuilds agriculture sector - Food security & employment opportunities

Tuesday, 25 May 2010 14:53

Algeria is looking to rebuild the country's once-dominant agriculture sector, seeking to guarantee domestic food security while providing employment and income for a large segment of the people.

Over the past three decades, agricultural output has fallen by around 30%, according to figures from the   Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This is despite high levels of investment and price support from the state and improvements in technology and agri-sciences. According to some estimates, up to 70% of the daily calorie intake of Algerians is met by imported foods, a level the government is keen to push down.

In late April, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika described the situation of food dependency in Algeria and the Arab world as critical. In a message delivered to the 31st session of the Arab Organisation for Agricultural Development (AOAD), held in Algiers, the president said the recent global crisis had served as a wake-up call for the agriculture sector.

"The latest financial crisis gives us awareness of the impacts of such dependency and the need of establishing agricultural mechanisms of market control, resistance to foreign shocks and strong attractiveness for foreign investments," Bouteflika wrote.

There was an urgent need to strengthen regional cooperation so as to master the new knowledge and technologies that would enable Arab countries to make better choices, especially in terms of priority actions and appropriate solutions to problems relating to the agricultural field, the president said in his message to delegates.

The president's message may have struck a cord, with Saudi Arabia's agriculture minister, Fahad Abdul-Rahman Balghunaim, saying that his country was considering investing in Algeria.

"Some of our farmers from the private sector have started investing in countries like Egypt and Sudan. We hope to do the same thing in Algeria," he told the conference.

Those hopes have been fuelled by reports that the government will allow foreigners to lease farmland, the first time that overseas investors have been permitted to do so. According to Mohamed Cherif Ould Hocine, the head of Algeria's National Chamber of Agriculture, the finishing touches were being put to the proposal.

"Our country wants to rationally use its tools, with the aim of increasing agricultural production. Algeria is open and it is a liberal country," he told international press on April 8.

Though an estimated 25% of the Algerian workforce is employed in the agriculture sector, the industry now accounts for less than 10% of GDP, a figure that has fallen back over the past 20 years as hydrocarbons have come to dominate the country's economy.

While the economy expanded by some 2% last year, the agriculture sector contributed little to this growth, with poor harvests in a number of key crops pushing up the import requirements. Spiraling food costs also helped to push up Algeria's inflation rate, which hit 5.8% in 2009 at a time when price indexes in many other countries were easing back.

Even in good years Algeria has to import grain to meet its needs, having to buy up to 5m tonnes on the international markets. In particular, Algeria often has to import hard wheat for pasta, other wheat varieties to produce flour for bread-making and also some cereals for livestock feed.

The 2008-09 grain harvest was a poor one, down by 40% year-on-year due to drought, though this had been turned around after good autumn rains and a mild winter. With some 2m tonnes of barley brought in from the fields this year, Algeria will be in a position to export at least some of its grain, something that has not occurred in 40 years. However, though more than 3.5m tonnes of wheat has been harvested, Algeria will still have to rely on imports to meet demand.

While these and other measures, such as subsidies for fertiliser and other chemicals required for modern farming, will bolster the agriculture sector, Algeria's farmers will continue to be at the mercy of climatic conditions. With limited water supplies in many regions, and few production areas fully served by irrigations networks, good harvests could still be an exception rather than the norm.

Global Arab Network

This article is published in partnership with Oxford Business Group

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 15:00

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