Some 300 kilometers south of Algiers begins the steppe. A territory of 20 million hectares constitutes the land of sheep where olive trees grow almost everywhere.
Since the 2000s, this landscape has changed; olive trees previously confined to the north of the country have been massively planted. As in Tunisia, the olive tree sets out to conquer the steppe.
An ambitious planting program
It was thanks to the National Agricultural Development Plan that, from June 2000, the agricultural services embarked on a program of aid for the planting of fruit species: pistachio trees, olive trees, fig trees, almond trees, and cherry trees.
It was the olive trees that were preferred by investors. Thanks to generous public subsidies, plantations have multiplied in Laghouat, Mila, Batna, Djelfa, Naâma or Saïda.
Plantations are sometimes carried out without the necessary precautions, which will lead to the drying out of thousands of young trees. A situation in March 2014 led the olive oil expert Akli Moussouni to this harsh observation: “The program to plant one million olive trees is a failure. »
Thousands of olive trees were planted in Mila
Despite these failures, the enthusiasm for the olive tree has not been denied. In M’sila, the APS noted that in 12 years the surfaces had increased from 400 hectares to more than 6,000 hectares. Local demand reaches 500,000 olive seedlings per year. And the lack of plants has long been the cause of a local increase in the price of young plants.
This situation belongs to the past. Today, the nursery of a subsidiary of the public group Consider plans to produce one million plants. Plants that fit into the resumption of plantations at the Barrage Vert, this belt of trees should limit the advance of the desert.
A sector created from scratch
In M’sila, as elsewhere, the establishment of an olive sector ex nihilo, from scratch, has come up against many obstacles. A recent study by the National School of Agronomics and the Center for Research in Agropastoralism has made it possible to draw up an initial assessment. In the case of M’sila, it appears that the sector “remains currently under-exploited, poorly organized, and poorly supervised. »
The authors note pell-mell the lack of know-how, the inadequacy, and the inadequacy of material and human resources. A situation that has repercussions on olive oil yields and the regularity of production.
Insufficient number of oil mills
The 10 oil mills of M’sila remain insufficient. Waiting times reach up to 7 days and farmers are forced to travel outside the wilaya. Although recently, oil mills have no means of measuring acidity and temperature during mixing.
Marketing remains dominated by the informal market without established specifications, which leaves the field open to all excesses. Recently, the Batna security services discovered a clandestine workshop where dozens of 5-liter cans of soybean oil were stored. An oil that was mixed with olive oil and sold as such.
The authors note that in M’sila, the sector only owes its existence thanks to “the resilience of producers in the face of climatic hazards. However, this program would have enabled the emergence of leading farmers who achieve high yields and produce quality oil.
Use of modern techniques
With sometimes annual averages of 150 mm of rain, irrigation remains essential. Largely subsidized, the olive groves were able to equip themselves with boreholes, basins, and drip irrigation.
In the steppe, the ungrateful soils are far from resembling the rich lands of the Mitidja. The overloading of rangelands by sheep has long since caused the disappearance of the cover of esparto and artemisia and has impoverished the soils.
To promote the installation of olive trees, it is not uncommon to have to carry out a “breaking up” with a bulldozer in order to break the limestone crust of the soil. The only advantage is the dry air which reduces diseases and therefore chemical treatments.
Alongside small farms, plantations of several thousand trees have appeared, some of which are super-intensive.
Strong increase in super-intensive plantations
In Saïda, the olive grove of the Orus Agriculture subsidiary of the Sahraoui group has 1,200 hectares. Each year, 300 tons of olive oil are produced. Production is exported to the Netherlands, Qatar, South Africa, and China.
Olive trees are not planted 8 meters apart; barely two meters separate each tree. These are Spanish varieties Arbequina and Pascual of small size and high yield with 10 to 15 liters of oil per tree against 5 to 6 for the local variety Chemlal. Varieties come into production after three years, unlike the eight years required for traditional varieties.
Thanks to the RTK system, much more precise than GPS, the plantations are carried out mechanically with an alignment to the nearest centimeter which allows mechanical pruning.
At the foot of the trees run the irrigation pipes bringing water and soluble fertilizers. The water supply is ensured by boreholes and huge basins the size of a football field. As for the harvest, it is mechanical. Machines equipped with rotating brushes uproot the olives and harvest up to 10 hectares per day.
Nurseries specializing in Spanish varieties
This type of planting requires a local supply of seedlings. In Batna, Ali Zerrad, the manager of the New Maghreb Forests nursery, produces several hundred thousand trees annually.
In particular the famous Spanish species. In order to be self-sufficient in cuttings, the nurseryman has planted several of these trees in his orchard and takes the branches there for cuttings in greenhouses equipped with foggers. The atmosphere thus saturated with water vapor promotes rapid rooting.
In January 2019, Ali Zerad told El Watan that the nursery was preparing a “personalized” order of 100,000 plants for a farmer.
As the plants were designed for super-intensive management, a team of workers had the task of ridding the young plants of their secondary branches.
At the time, the nurseryman was considering planting 2,000 hectares of olive trees: “A project that is in the advanced phase of negotiations with the Chinese who want to buy all the production to send it to China. »
Deep changes in the steppe
These plantations illustrate the changes in the Algerian steppe. They are not without raising questions: balance between local market supply and export or use of agricultural land.
The steppe has several million hectares, mainly rangelands and water resources that have always been used by herders. Breeders are worried about the arrival of these new investors.
