Tunisia Second Among Africa's Organic Exporters

Summary

Tunisia has become the sec­ond largest organic exporter in Africa, export­ing prod­ucts like olive oil to 30 coun­tries across five con­ti­nents, with 66 per­cent of their 2,987 organic farm­ers being exporters. The coun­try’s organic sec­tor, rec­og­nized for its qual­ity and com­pli­ance with European reg­u­la­tions, has gen­er­ated sig­nif­i­cant rev­enues, with entre­pre­neurs like Slim Fendri of Domaine Fendri lead­ing suc­cess­ful ini­tia­tives to enhance the organolep­tic prop­er­ties of olive oil and increase pro­duc­tion capac­ity.

The Tunisian Center for the Promotion of Exports (CEPEX), and the Directorate General for Organic Agriculture, have just announced that Tunisia has made major advances in organic agri­cul­ture to the point that it has become the sec­ond largest organic exporter in Africa, includ­ing olive oil, to 30 coun­tries on five con­ti­nents.

According to Aziza Htira, CEPEX CEO, Tunisia cur­rently has 2,987 organic farm­ers, 66 per­cent of whom are exporters, which not only pro­vides the Tunisian pop­u­la­tion with prod­ucts that are good for health and respect­ful of the envi­ron­ment but does also cre­ate jobs.
See Also:Organic Olive Oil Production
For Aziza Htira, the devel­op­ment of organic farm­ing ​“is a com­mer­cial asset that must pro­mote the val­oriza­tion of local know-how and the improve­ment of the liv­ing con­di­tions of the pop­u­la­tions of these often mar­ginal areas, thus con­tribut­ing to the con­ser­va­tion objec­tive of Natural resources and cul­tural her­itage with a sus­tain­able devel­op­ment approach.”

Among the lead­ing organic prod­ucts exported by Tunisia are Tunisian Maltese orange, Harissa, Bsissa, Deglet Ennour dates, aro­matic and med­i­c­i­nal plants, sev­eral wines and spir­its, and olive oil. Exports of organic olive oil have thus achieved the best incomes with rev­enues of US$ 126 mil­lion out of the US$ 150 mil­lion in Tunisian exports of organic prod­ucts in 2015.

Samia Maamer, man­ag­ing direc­tor of organic agri­cul­ture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries, pointed out that this sec­tor is very promis­ing. ​“We are the only coun­try in the Arab world to have put in place a tech­ni­cal reg­u­la­tion on the soil to exploit, but we will have to think about a new strat­egy, a new model of organic agri­cul­ture with all its achievements,“she said.

For those who may doubt about the organic qual­ity of prod­ucts imported from coun­tries based out­side the European Union, these organic prod­ucts must also com­ply with organic European reg­u­la­tions.

It should be noted that Tunisia is the only African and Arab coun­try to ben­e­fit from the recog­ni­tion of equiv­a­lence with the European Union for the export of organic prod­ucts since 2009. This recog­ni­tion was renewed in June 2015 for an indef­i­nite period.

So despite the eco­nomic dif­fi­cul­ties Tunisia is going through, some entre­pre­neurs have devel­oped some suc­cess­ful inno­va­tions and ini­tia­tives.

Domaine Fendri’s suc­cess­ful approach

Organic extra-vir­gin olive oil pro­duced by the mills of Domaine Fendri, located in Meknassy (in the region of Sidi Bouzid), has won the mul­ti­ple awards.

Slim Fendri, 49, heir to fam­ily know-how, has been work­ing in the farm since 1995. With the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of organic food, he has cho­sen to focus on qual­ity rather than quan­tity in order to enhance the organolep­tic prop­er­ties of his oils. And it was worth it. In 2011, he won his first inter­na­tional award and he has been col­lect­ing awards since then.

Today, the estate pro­duces 150 to 200 tons per year of green gold, of which more than 100 tons are used for export. The olive grower, who demon­strated with care­ful work that the Chemlali vari­ety, con­sid­ered as com­mon, could give a crop of excel­lence, plans to increase its pro­duc­tion capac­ity by plant­ing 10,000 addi­tional olive trees, while pre­serv­ing the human dimen­sion of his busi­ness.

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• Great entre­pre­neurs’ ini­tia­tives in Tunisia