Tunisia Works With Producers to Add Value to Branded Exports

The Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries antic­i­pates a sig­nif­i­cant boost to olive oil exports due to the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of bureau­cratic approvals and new prod­uct labels.

According to Minister Mohamed Fadhel Kraiem, pro­duc­ers and the gov­ern­ment must pri­or­i­tize pack­ag­ing Tunisian olive oil with local labels to add value to oils des­tined for export by clearly iden­ti­fy­ing their ori­gin.

The ini­tia­tive comes on top of sev­eral other efforts focused in recent years on help­ing local farm­ers of all sizes invest in olive oil qual­ity.

Since 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have joined Tunisian author­i­ties intend­ing to make high-qual­ity Tunisian olive oil rec­og­niz­able on inter­na­tional mar­kets.

Lisa Paglietti, an FAO econ­o­mist, recently empha­sized how the ini­tia­tive has shown that even small grow­ers can become com­pet­i­tive and demon­strate a strong resilience to eco­nomic shocks, such as those brought by the COVID-19 pan­demic.

“The long-term mar­ket vision fore­sees Tunisia play­ing an increas­ingly impor­tant role in bot­tled, value-added and organic extra vir­gin olive oil on the inter­na­tional mar­ket,” she said.

Tunisia is one of the two largest olive oil pro­duc­ers out­side the European Union. The other is Turkey.

In the 2019/20 sea­son, Tunisia’s olive oil yield reached a record-high 350,000 tons, while the esti­mates of the National Olive Oil Office (ONH) for the lat­est sea­son fore­see a drop to 140,000 tons. The International Olive Council esti­mates that the 2020 har­vest in Tunisia reached 120,000 tons.

Despite the pro­duc­tion drop, the country’s cham­ber of olive oil exporters said that bot­tled olive oil totals reached 27,000 tons in 2020. By 2025, local com­pa­nies expect bot­tled olive oil exports to rise to 70,000 tons per year.

Kraiem has also rec­om­mended both gov­ern­ment offi­cials and local pro­duc­ers push on with the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of the export­ing oper­a­tions.

The first step, said the min­is­ter at a meet­ing with the ONH, will set up an elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­form with the min­istry for com­pa­nies that need export autho­riza­tions.

The plat­form is part of a broader push by the Tunisian gov­ern­ment known as Smart Gov 2020, the national plan for devel­op­ing a more inclu­sive and acces­si­ble elec­tronic admin­is­tra­tion.

During the meet­ing, Kraiem also stressed the rel­e­vance of the ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions with the European Union to increase the Tunisian duty-free olive oil exports to the 27-nations block.

Under this agree­ment, the coun­try cur­rently exports 56,700 tons, but local author­i­ties hope the quota will be raised to 100,000 tons. At the moment, no final deci­sion has been reached on the mat­ter.

• Le Monde
• Le Monde
• FAO