“No, these are not weeds”! Saber Zouani shows nettles and dandelions about to invade his onion plants: he practices the natural techniques of permaculture, which is beginning to gain a foothold in Tunisia in the face of climatic challenges.
Since he returned two years ago to family land nestled in a forest in Cap Negro, 150 km west of Tunis, the obsession of this 37-year-old ex-unemployed man has been to constantly keep his soil wet.
A challenge: Tunisia suffered an unprecedented drought this spring, under the effect of climate change.
If he picks an onion or a radish, he immediately places the tops at the feet of the pepper or sorghum shoots, already sheltered by the grass, to avoid too rapid evaporation.
In permaculture, a concept theorized by two Australian ecologists in the 1970s, nothing is lost and everything is linked.
Teacher Hend Samara works as a volunteer on a plot of Saber Zouani, a permaculture, in Cap Negro, northern Tunisia, April 27, 2023AFPFETHI BELAID
Near the essential rainwater retention basin created with a tarpaulin, Mr. Zouani has installed his vegetable crops and his animals (goats, cows, sheep, and hens) whose droppings are used for compost used as fertilizer.
“You have to create living soil, attract earthworms, fungi, and all the nutrients for our plants and trees,” he explains.
He strictly limits watering and uses only seeds of his production and no pesticides, only natural repellents.
“Worthy income”
A woman leads sheep on April 27, 2023, in Cap Negro, northern Tunisia.AFPFETHI BELAID
Permaculture is “returning to our roots, to the traditional methods used by our grandparents”, he underlines, showing unploughed mounds alternating seedlings, compost, compost, and dead leaves, according to a very accurate.
Mr. Zouani earns around 300 dinars (barely 100 euros) per month but with his retired parents and his brother, they are self-sufficient in food.
And in two or three years, he intends to “draw a decent income” thanks to his “business plan” which will also transform their three-hectare farm, renamed “Om Hnia”, into a table d’hôte, then a rural lodge.
A man loads jerry cans of water onto a donkey in Cap Negro, northern Tunisia, on April 27, 2023.AFPFETHI BELAID
This graduate in biotechnology who, like many young Tunisians, could not find work in his sector, decided to retrain when he lost his job as a waiter because of Covid. The Tunisian Association of Permaculture (ATP), known by chance, trained him for free and then supported him financially with his basic equipment.
Mr. Zouani is one of the beneficiaries of the “Plant your farm” project which aims to create 50 micro-farms in Tunisia in five years, of which around 30 are already active.
“The goal is to have hundreds of hectares and demonstrate to the authorities and other farmers that permaculture is a profitable and efficient agricultural system, and which brings back biodiversity when the soil is depleted by dint of plowing. and chemical inputs”, explains the president of the ATP, Rim Mathlouthi.
Water shortage
The program, financed in particular by Swiss funds, concerns all regions, even those with hostile climates, with the objective of local development by bringing young unemployed people back to abandoned family land.
A man strokes the muzzle of a cow in Cap Negro, northern Tunisia, on April 27, 2023.AFPFETHI BELAID
The ATP also hopes to contribute to “changing a Tunisian model where the farmer loses money because he constantly spends for a very small yield, by buying seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides”, according to Ms. Mathlouthi.
A system centered on cereals (wheat, barley) and other water-intensive crops, while availability in Tunisia has fallen to less than 500 cubic meters per year and inhabitant, considered the “threshold of absolute shortage” by the World Bank.
Farm in Cap Negro, April 27, 2023 in northern TunisiaAFPFETHI BELAID
Precisely, in the eyes of Ms. Mathlouthi, “crises such as water stress or the war in Ukraine (which increases the cost of inputs) are opportunities to promote solutions such as agroecology and permaculture”.
The ATP recently launched the “citizen food” label and “farmers’ markets” at affordable prices, to bring producers and buyers closer together.
