Algeria has resigned itself to lifting the ban on the importation of white and red meat, thus reversing a measure intended to encourage national producers to have a competitive local sector.
The overall direction of regulation of imports of many products, through rationalization, restriction, or ban, goes towards this objective.
For meat, in any case, the result was an unprecedented increase in prices. A kilo of beef reached 2,500 dinars, becoming inaccessible even to average budgets.
Chicken has also gained wings, exceeding 500 dinars per kilo, whereas it rarely exceeded 300 dinars a few years ago.
It is the Algerian sectors that illustrate their difficulties in putting products on the market in sufficient quantities to replace imports.
This return to importing meat and the massive purchase of cereals abroad also shows how long the road is to achieving food security.
However, the official figures relating to the performance of Algerian agriculture speak for themselves. Last February, at the national conference on agriculture, the President of the Republic revealed that Algerian agricultural production reached, in value, 35 billion dollars. In volume, production was doubled between 2020 and 2022, according to a report published a month earlier at the Davos forum. So where’s the problem?
If we must admit that Algerian agriculture has significantly improved its performance in recent years, it should also be noted that certain sectors are not keeping pace.
However, it turns out that these sectors are the most important for the country’s food security: cereals, milk, meat, sugar, and oilseeds.
For these last two sectors, Algeria is entirely dependent on imports and it is only in recent months that plans to launch local production have been announced.
The cereal sector, the most sensitive and strategic of all, is dependent on rainfall and sometimes does not cover half of national needs.
This year, for example, drought has reduced production to 2.7 million tonnes (figure from the US Department of Agriculture), for needs of 10 to 11 million tonnes.
Food security: Algeria must wait
It has been three decades or more since the development of the sector has been made a national priority, but neither the yields nor the volumes produced have changed significantly.
The new objective assigned by the President of the Republic to cereal farmers is to produce 9 million tonnes on 3 million hectares planted, at a rate of 30 quintals per hectare.
Such figures, very reasonable, are in principle within Algeria’s reach and it is difficult to understand why it is struggling to achieve them despite all the money spent by the State in support, in encouraging irrigation. notably.
The problem perhaps lies in a lack of modernization of the sector, including in its management.
Which also applies to breeding. According to the Head of State’s admission, for many years, the government was unaware of the size of the herd and it was only after the introduction of modern census techniques, such as the use of drones, that a figure closer to reality was decided: 19 million heads.
In this sector, too, colossal sums are spent supporting breeders. In vain, since they have just demonstrated their failure to improve their performance, even while being freed for several years from import competition.
On the contrary, the cessation of importation was taken advantage of by producers and intermediaries to increase prices indecently, whether for meat or all local products that the State had the laudable intention of ‘encouraging.
Another good example is that of the local apple, which has become inaccessible since the importation of this fruit was frozen. It is the market that has been deprived of its regulator which is import.
All these consequences must lead public authorities to realize that the obsession with producing everything locally is an illusion. Or at least, the methods adopted are not the right ones.
Algerian agriculture has great potential as shown by the performances of recent years, but a profound reform is necessary to modernize it, set priorities, and use water, especially that of the Sahara which is not very renewable, for strategic sectors such as wheat, oilseeds, livestock…
