At the Cereals and Pulses Cooperative in Saïda, the stacking of sacks of wheat seeds is such that it takes the form of a pyramid whose top reaches the roof of the sheds that house them.
It’s time to process certified seeds. Far from being insignificant, it is on these operations that a large part of the yield of cereal production in Algeria depends.
Already, CCLS are inviting farmers to come and collect the first batches of barley seeds. To encourage the cultivation of cereals, the Algerian Interprofessional Cereals Office (OAIC) has just decided to grant a 20% reduction in the price of these seeds.
Seed milling, 7 days a week
Farmers do not sow the wheat they have harvested but sow certified seed. Alongside a few small private operators, the CCLS are responsible for producing this type of seed by sorting and treating with fungicides the batches of wheat harvested by farmers specializing in multiplication.
Objective: to produce 3 million quintals of seed by mid-October. For several weeks the staff has been active up to 7 days a week around the weighing scales and other densimetric tables. Sophisticated equipment that eliminates weed seeds, impurities of all kinds and small grains.
Once these grains have been treated against diseases and colored red to avoid any confusion with batches of table wheat, the seeds are put into 100 kg bags and stored.
Seeds even in Adrar
From the west to the east of Algeria, in the CCLS it is the same commotion. At the Oued Rhiou CCLS, a continuous stream of seeds from a hopper is used to fill bags which pass on a conveyor belt. They are seized by workers who close them using a portable sewing machine. In the seam of each bag is slipped a label mentioning the nature of the cereals.
In the far south, the CCLS of Adrar also has its seed station. In the middle of the desert, Adrar produces its own certified seeds. Engineer Mohamed Amine Kehal told Algerian Television that “CCLS collected 40,000 quintals of cereals”. Cereals produced under pivot irrigation. Today, by semi-trailer trucks, the CCLS is able to supply the neighboring wilayas with consumption wheat.
Seed lots controlled by the CNC
The cooperative has modern machining equipment acquired from the Turkish company Akyurek. Investors cultivating under pivot are therefore assured of having all types of seeds: soft wheat, durum wheat and barley. In the sheds, on wooden pallets, big bags are arranged on two levels, each with a sign indicating its origin.
From each batch, samples are taken to be sent to Sidi Bel Abbès to the regional laboratory of the National Certification Center (CNC). It is only after analysis of the varietal purity and the germination rate of the batches that the “certified seeds” label is issued.
Certified seeds, a guarantee of quality
It is the recent acquisition of modern equipment that has enabled the CCLS to produce up to 3 million quintals of seed. During a recent broadcast on Algerian Television, Nourredine Amrani, the production support officer at the OAIC, indicated that Algeria’s current needs are 4 million quintals and promised that further investments should make it possible to fill the current deficit of one million seeds.
For the farmer, using certified seeds is a guarantee of yield. In fact, direct sowing of the harvested grains is likely to also sow weed seeds and small, unproductive grains. Not to mention the risk of diseases due to lack of treatment of the grains with fungicides.
Recently, CCLS have offered farmers the opportunity to sort and treat their own seeds. Private operators are also investing in this market.
By using certified seeds, the farmer is also guaranteed to sow a specific variety. And this is far from trivial.
Depending on the variety, a yield of 14 or 72 quintals
Currently, the CCLS offers a wide choice of wheat varieties. Varietal choice is crucial for the farmer. In the case of durum wheat, the yield gap between old and new varieties may be several dozen quintals.
In his harvested field, next to a heap of straw bales waiting to be removed, Nabil Souadi, a farmer in Aïn Arnat confided to Ennahar TV at the end of August: “The Mohamed Ben Bachir variety only gives a yield of 13 to 14 quintals with a complete technical itinerary. This is why we must go to the varieties Oued Bared, Boussalem in our region. »
At the Cassap in Sétif, engineer Mahfoud Makhlouf, a fine connoisseur of cereal cultivation, added: “The farmer is asking for Mohamed Ben Bachir, Bidi 17, but these varieties have limited yields. The farmer must sow other varieties. »
If the Oued Zenati or Hedba varieties give 14 quintals per hectare, the new Oued Bared variety can produce up to 72. Certainly, such a yield is obtained in irrigated conditions and insofar as the crop receives sufficient fertilization and adequate weeding.
Oued Bared, Boussalem, and many other varieties are obtained from the Institut Technique des Grandes Cultures. These varieties rub shoulders with varieties of Italian origin offered by private establishments such as Axium in Constantine.
Towards local production of metal silos
This strong activity means that in this month of September, in the CCLS, cereals are everywhere: stored flat under the sheds, in big bags or in the case of processed seeds in these impressive stacks of bags of one quintal.
The separation of the different batches is the priority of the staff. It is a question of managing the batches intended for consumption, those intended for seeds, and among the later separating the different species and varieties.
In early September, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohamed Abdelhafid Henni, said that as part of the expansion of grain storage capacity, a program will be implemented to build small and medium size.
Such facilities should make it possible to increase modern storage capacities but above all to improve the traceability of the different batches of cereals.
