Global Courant
Since the beginning of the year, the number of people fleeing North Africa by boat to the European Union has increased significantly. While some of them are people who have fled from sub-Saharan Africa and use countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya as a transit point, many are local residents who can no longer make a living in their own countries.
The EU has been working to prevent more people from crossing the Mediterranean by stepping up its surveillance and militarization of its southern maritime borders. But the country has also reached out to regional governments to get their help in combating migration.
In the case of Tunisia, the EU and Tunisian President Kaïs Saied signed an agreement called the “Comprehensive Partnership Package”. In exchange for stopping the flow of people trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, Tunis will receive 255 million euros ($269 million) for equipment, training and financial support. The country could also receive another 900 million euros ($953 million) if it reaches an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for structural economic reforms, including controversial cuts to its food subsidy program.
Regarding the trade component of the deal, the Memorandum of Understanding outlines plans for investments in agriculture, green energy and the digital transition, among other things. While it remains to be seen how this memorandum will take shape, it can be read as a continuation of the EU’s trade policy towards its southern neighbor, which has been criticized for systematically disadvantaging Tunisian small and medium-sized enterprises.
Against this background, it seems unlikely that the migration deal will improve the situation for Tunisians, especially those from rural areas who are trying to emigrate en masse from the country. In fact, the EU’s past and present trade policies towards Tunisia are largely responsible for the misery of small-scale farmers and agricultural workers.
While EU companies have flooded the Tunisian market with EU-made products, Tunisian farmers have struggled to compete with their EU counterparts, not least because of the ways in which the EU continues to protect its domestic agricultural sector.
Sometimes EU protectionism takes the form of frustratingly simple issues, such as the fact that periods when Tunisian products are given privileged access to the EU market under a customs quota scheme are out of sync with their production cycle in Tunisia. For example, in the case of watermelons, the main growing season is between June and September, while the EU only allows duty-free imports between November and May.
The unequal economic exchange in agricultural trade relations between Tunisia and the EU is also reflected in the trade in olive oil, one of Tunisia’s main export products.
Olives are grown as a large-scale monoculture on the best irrigated agricultural lands. About 80 percent of the olive oil produced from it is exported, mostly in crude form, mainly to Spain and Italy, where it is refined and sold to European consumers. Tunisia is missing out on significant added value.
Meanwhile, rising food prices in the country have put olive oil consumption increasingly out of reach for ordinary Tunisians. Food remains the largest expense for Tunisian families, more expensive than housing, electricity or water, accounting for an average of 30 percent of annual household expenses, rising to almost 40 percent for the lowest income groups.
More traditional olive growing, unlike industrial monoculture olive groves, involves older trees that are spaced apart and require less water; thus it is better suited to more arid climates. Such agricultural practices that smallholder farmers use for production for the domestic market are considered unviable due to the lack of support they receive from the government.
As farmer Abdul Karim explained to me during a trade and agricultural policy workshop organized by the Tunisian Platform for Alternatives and the Transnational Institute in Tunis in July: “Traditional olive trees can live for 150 years. The support for olive cultivation is 2 dinars per olive tree, while our production costs are about 15-20 dinars per tree. We need support for water and for tractors. But without this support my olive trees will dry out and die.”
In addition to olives, Tunisia is under pressure to grow other agricultural products for export to the EU, including citrus fruits and vegetables. Some of them are also particularly water-intensive crops, which make little sense to grow in a country suffering from extreme water scarcity, droughts and forest fires.
Already in the fourth year of a prolonged drought, and with temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in July, the situation of Tunisian farmers will only worsen. Climate risk forecasts for Tunisia predict that annual maximum temperatures are likely to rise by 1.9 to 3.8 degrees Celsius by 2050, while precipitation levels could fall by as much as 22 percent.
In response, the Tunisian government has taken a series of measures to curb water use, including a restriction on agricultural irrigation and a ban on pumping groundwater below 50 meters.
While these measures may sound reasonable, Tunisian farmers are struggling. Reduced rainfall has forced farmers to resort to tapping groundwater sources to irrigate their crops and trees and to provide drinking water for their animals. Yet declining groundwater levels mean that water can only be found at a depth of 80 meters, Abdul Karim told me. Farmers have no choice but to dig deeper or face economic ruin.
Farmers we spoke to complained that while they risk being criminalized for using water to survive, the government turns a blind eye to wealthy investors who unregulatedly buy up land for olive production and dig deep-water wells. These wells can be up to 200-300 meters deep, said Yasser, a Tunisian natural resources management engineer who also participated in the aforementioned workshop.
All this means that small-scale farmers, who form the majority in Tunisia, are caught between the crushing forces of unfair external trade policies and internal government policies tailored to the needs of a few major market players. They can no longer make a living from agriculture and many have no choice but to emigrate.
The EU’s agreement with Tunisia to boost trade ties and stem the flow of people trying to reach European shores is a blatant refusal to tackle some of the root causes of migration. A trade policy that favors European markets will not improve the socio-economic situation of Tunisians in rural areas.
In the context of multiple and intersecting crises, agricultural and trade policies in Tunisia and the broader North Africa region need to be reexamined. If the EU really wants to address what it calls a ‘migration crisis’, it must rethink its extractive trade policies with the rest of the world, and not enter into deals that only lead to more uncertainty.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
