Tunisia drought threatens ‘catastrophic’ grain harvest

Medjez El Bab, Tunisia (AFP):

A severe drought in North Africa has left Tunisian farmers bracing for a catastrophically poor harvest, imperilling food security in the cash-strapped country.

At a time when the global cereals market has been disrupted by the Ukraine war, Tunisia’s domestic grain production has also withered under a lack of rainfall that has killed off crops.

Even before the roasting summer months, the soil is dry and dusty in the small Mediterranean country, whose water resources are steadily depleting as climate change intensifies.

“We’ve never seen a drought this bad,” said wheat farmer Tahar Chaouachi, walking despondently through his field, 55 kilometres inland from the capital Tunis.

“It’s been dry for the last four years but we expected some rain this season. Instead, it’s become worse.”

With some Tunisian water reservoirs almost completely dry, authorities imposed emergency measures last month, rationing household supplies and banning water use for washing cars — as well as for irrigating fields.

“Production is at zero,” said Chaouachi, whose farmland lies in Beja province, a key grain production area since the days of the Roman Empire.

“The situation is unsustainable. We’re losing everything we spend on seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and wages,” he said. “There’s no telling where things are heading.”

The shortages come at a critical time for Tunisia, a net importer of wheat that has been hit hard by price hikes since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both huge cereals exporters.

A painful cost-of-living crisis is compounding woes as the government is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.

The area has seen less than 10 centimetres (four inches) of rain since the autumn, pushing farmers either to plough withered crops back into the soil or harvest the stalks for animal feed.

A farmer said that in December, “we sowed wheat here, but the seeds have just died because it’s too dry”.

Of the 600 hectares he planted, he was able to harvest from just 70.

Tunisia devotes 80 percent of its water supply to irrigating just eight percent of its farmland, leaving the remainder to rely on increasingly scarce rainfall.

“It doesn’t make sense anymore,” a local farmer said. “Drought means there will be no more water for rain-fed agriculture.”