Faced with increased droughts and the spread of diseases, more and more Tunisian farmers are returning to traditional seeds, long threatened by hybrid varieties but which they believe are more resistant to the consequences of climate change.
While improved wheat seeds, developed from the 1980s in Tunisia, are caught up by diseases, traditional varieties are resisting, they say.
Climate change causes variations in precipitation, temperature, and humidity, which promotes the development of certain diseases, explains Maher Medini, Tunisian researcher in molecular biology.
According to him, “the basis of adaptation is diversity”. And indigenous varieties are a “reservoir of genes hundreds, if not thousands of years old,” which are better suited to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s climate.
In Tunisia, from generation to generation, the custom has long seen the peasants store a small part of their harvests obtained from “native” species to sow the fields the following year.
But with the increasing use of hybrid or genetically modified seeds – crops touted as more abundant and easier to “calibrate” – these native plants have almost fallen into oblivion.
In recent years, however, Tunisian peasants have tried to resuscitate them. For a good cause.
– “Results” –
In Jedaida, an agricultural region about thirty km from Tunis, Mohamed Lassad ben Saleh, says he “hesitated before venturing”, eight years ago, to replant an indigenous variety of wheat, known as “al-Msekni”.
On his farm, the smell of straw and the hum of combine harvesters: the harvest season is in full swing. The wheat is put in white bags, then weighed separately, in order to calculate the productivity of each plot. “And the results are good,” said Mr. Ben Saleh.
So, at the end of the day, the operator brings together local farmers to share the productivity figures for traditional seeds, a way of trying to convince them to abandon their industrial equivalents.
The farmer explains that his harvest is over five tonnes per hectare, much more than the national average (1.4 to 2 tonnes) over the past few years.
According to Mr. Ben Saleh, the variety “Al-Msekni” is more resistant to prolonged episodes of drought in the Tunisian climate, and to diseases – which allows it to save on pesticides.
“Newer varieties are fragile and quickly affected by fungi,” for example, he says.
One of the peasants present, Oussama Bahrouni, seems convinced. From the next season, he wants to sow a local variety.
Previously, he says, farmers had to buy back seeds every season because seeds from hybrid seeds cannot be reseeded.
Result: to date, Tunisia imports 70 to 80% of its vegetable seeds each year.
– “Genetic patrimony” –
A national bank is working to “reclaim” the local “genetic heritage”.
Since 2008, it has been collecting traditional seeds from farmers and collecting indigenous Tunisian seeds stored in gene banks around the world.
Tunisia has thus been able to bring back to the country more than 7,000 samples of seeds of fruit trees, cereals, or vegetables, out of the more than 11,000 found in Europe but also in Asia, and as far as Australia. These seeds are starting to be sown again in Tunisian fields.
Old varieties like “Al-Msekni” or “Al-Mahmoudi” “come from this land, they know it very well”, according to Aymen Amayed, a researcher in agricultural policies.
As a result, they adapt better to increased episodes of drought, and more broadly “to climate change”, explains Mr. Ben Naceur.
Faced with the expected increase in temperatures by 2050, he assures us that “the varieties which will not be resistant will disappear”, while absolute heat records were broken this summer in Tunisia.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) itself warns against the increasing use of hybrid seeds, considering that it poses a threat to indigenous seeds.
According to the FAO, around 75% of the genetic diversity of crops in the world has already disappeared during the last century.
