The Tunisian Association of Permaculture (ATP) is launching the fourth cohort of the "Plant your Farm" programme for 2023/2024, targeting the governorates of Tataouine, Medenine, Gabes, Kebili and Tozeur.

According to the association, the programme offers selected candidates training in permaculture, support in "creating an economic and social permaculture micro-farm project, integrating permaculturists into a community of consumers" and enabling permaculturists to join a natural label.

The programme is one of a number of activities organised by the association to promote agroecology in Tunisia.

Agro-ecology is currently being presented by civil society actors, including this association, as an alternative to intensive agriculture, the effects of which are proving increasingly harmful to the soil and the environment.

According to the association, agroecology needs to be based on four pillars. These are habitat in the form of soil that should never be disturbed, biomass production, soil that is always covered and water that is captured, stored and made available through natural processes.

ATP said this type of agriculture should be developed in Tunisia to put an end to the ever-increasing dependence of Tunisian farmers, their indebtedness to banks and equipment suppliers, and the degradation of soils that have become incapable of producing decent yields without massive amounts of increasingly expensive inputs.

Tunisian farmers have become dependent on seed and energy suppliers. They are also dependent on the agro-food industry and middlemen because they are unable to process themselves what could easily be turned into healthy artisanal products.

"Agriculture used to be like a big cake, a source of abundance. But with aberrant agricultural practices pushed by very powerful lobbies, the farmer's share of the 'agricultural cake' is now a mere crumb," Rim Mathlouthi, president of the Tunisian Permaculture Association, said during a day on agroecology held in Tunis last December.

Faced with the pretext of abundance that is always put forward by the proponents of intensive agriculture, the ATP believes that "nature automatically creates abundance if we let it".

In the same vein, the Tunisian geographer and researcher Habib Ayeb believes that Tunisia "unfortunately does not have an agricultural policy today". Instead, it has an "economic policy" that tolerates everything so that the few can make the most money.

In an interview with TAP (published on December 26), he described the abuses committed in the sector as a result of this policy. In particular, he cited the uncontrolled and excessive use of pesticides, some of which are banned elsewhere, and the use of imported, modified varieties that are unsuited to the country's climate, are unsustainable and consume large quantities of fertiliser, pesticides and water, to the detriment of local varieties of grains, olives and other crops.

In his view, people's right to a healthy, balanced diet and even to proper hygiene is being violated.

The scientist, whose work includes a medium-length documentary entitled "Couscous: the Seed of Dignity", advocates a radical agrarian and land reform over a 10-year period, which would prohibit "turning agriculture into a business", with irrigation for export, particularly in palm groves.

This reform, advocated by Ayeb, would also gradually ban chemical products over a period of time to be determined with experts in the field, and set a minimum size as well as all forms of intensive livestock farming.

It would set a limit on the size of farms based on soil quality, average local rainfall and the availability of groundwater (a maximum of 100 hectares and a minimum of 5 hectares), while undertaking to prohibit the fragmentation of agricultural land, whether by inheritance, sale or transfer.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse