Experts: We can make Algeria the source of food for the world

Nasira Syed Ali

A group of experts in agriculture and economic affairs appreciated the government’s measures to revitalize the agricultural sector. These experts told Al-Hiwar that the agricultural sector will witness a great recovery if the content of the president’s decisions is embodied on the ground, pointing out that the state’s accompaniment to agriculture has become necessary until we reach To achieve our food security and eliminate dependency in importing our food needs

Algeria is working hard to diversify its exports outside of hydrocarbons

For his part, economist Dr. Mokhtar Alali told Al-Hiwar that the sessions on the complex agricultural field today in the capital were related to ways to achieve agricultural growth, to form recommendations that produce an orientation towards the five-year plan “2025/2030”, since the previous plan drawn up by the former minister of the sector, Abdul Al-Hamid Hamdani was limited to 2024, and thus these sessions came at a time when the president had emphasized on more than one occasion the importance of producing widely consumed materials such as sugar and table oil through Algerian factories and 100% locally manufactured, and this is to correct the strategic objectives of this sector. And work to expand the area of ​​grain production to reach three million cultivated hectares, as well as work to improve livestock, calling on the government to culminate these sessions with recommendations followed by strict instructions and field standing to ensure the sincerity of intentions to embody the president’s pledges, to advance agricultural development in line with economic reality and in line with the investment law Al-Jadeed, and its eight organizations, pointing out that Algeria is working hard to diversify its exports outside of hydrocarbons, based on the advancement of the agricultural and rural development sector, after Algeria’s imports exceeded R from the agricultural sector exceeds $ 11.5 billion, which the government seeks to reduce, according to Prime Minister Ayman bin Abdel Rahman, who pledged to stop importing grain seeds during 2023. “The government seeks to cover the national needs in the field of agricultural production by eighty percent during the current year.

Until a break occurs between previous practices

Dr. Alali stressed that the President of the Republic gave strong messages in his speech that “push us to emphasize the need to break with precedent practices, on top of which is changing mentalities,” stressing that the state has worked during recent years to enable the strategic sector to achieve its goals in the short and medium term., In light of the current challenges of water scarcity, the challenges of the epidemic, and geostrategic crises, this is why Fan is looking forward to moving to a new stage characterized by the intensification and diversification of production in order to achieve the goals outlined in the government’s action plan. To create wealth and raise the production of the national economy by caring for all the people, the contribution of all parties, and improving the yield, as it is working to develop and improve all the people, and that Algeria has resorted to providing grain producers with high-quality grains that adapt to drought and other problems, while increasing the incentives provided to farmers, to raise production and achieve sufficiency, and allocated 30 billion dinars for this, while raising the proportion of fertilizer subsidies from 20 to 50 percent, calling in the same context to double the areas allocated for grain cultivation.

That is why we find that the government, says Dr. Alali, is working to develop and modernize various agricultural divisions such as grains, dry legumes, and oilseeds, in addition to developing the fruit trees division, improving the production of red meat, conducting comprehensive censuses of the country’s wealth and agricultural capabilities, and paying attention to medicinal herbs, in order to enhance security. food, and the need to develop a well-thought-out strategy and firm plans capable of correcting the wrong paths and the serious and full involvement of all actors, to work together in a coordinated framework dominated by transparency and mutual trust, and this is what I have reached through these national sessions.

We must accelerate the activation of the National Agency for Agricultural Support

On the other hand, the expert in agriculture, Engineer Ahmed Malha, confirmed to “Al-Hiwar” that Algeria has the largest water reserve in the states of the south, similar to the state of Manea Adrar. 30 million hectares of agricultural land, within the framework of the food security project, we can secure our food security, and thus we can – according to him – form poles for cultivating grains in each of the streams, ostrich eggs, in addition to cultivating fodder such as corn soy, which will allow us to revive livestock, and provide meat and milk And cheese, stressing that food security is linked to the element of water, and Algeria has a significant water reservoir, calling for the need to give importance to desert agriculture and activate the National Agency to Support Agricultural Investment in the South, desert agriculture, which has been long and has not been done until the moment.

These are the conditions for going to desert farming

Malha, the expert, said that heading towards desert agriculture requires providing a package of necessary measures to ensure its success, by providing the basic ingredients to facilitate investor activity in this field, which are water, electricity, agricultural real estate, selecting good seeds to ensure product yield, and extending the road network. And ending the isolation of the southern regions, as well as adopting the experiences of the leading countries in this type of agriculture globally, and the same expert said that the agricultural sector is one of the solutions and one of the bets that the current authorities must earn, but its access, as he said, needs to search for the peasant mind that thinks In the best methods of managing agriculture in the south, by conducting an in-depth study to search for the first possible agricultural priorities that must be placed in the list of products that the government or the state must take care of, and he believes, as a farming expert, that the establishment of agricultural institutes in the south, in addition to re-considering the institute of agriculture The desert located in the wilaya of Biskra, which has been neglected, indifferent and marginalized since the time of the gang regime, and this is – according to him – in order to form a specialized labor force that works to develop agriculture in this way. areas such as selecting seeds, studying their varieties, studying the soil, etc. Malha said in the same context, I made several reports about desert agriculture in the Qasi Tawil region, and I discovered the extent of the suffering of investors due to their small number, foremost of which Ahmed Malha adds electricity, which made many of them migrate the sector, not to mention the reluctance Young people continue the activity of parents and grandparents and take care of the palm tree, which has begun to tend to extinction, and within 5 years, if the matter remains as it is, Algeria will resort to importing dates instead of exporting them.

We will reach 80 percent of agricultural yields

In this context, the expert in international trade, Dr. Nabil Jumaa, valued in his interview with Al-Hiwar what was stated in the endeavor of the President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s speech in the National Agriculture sessions. Establishing an investment bank, the time has come for the agricultural sector – adds the same speaker – to upgrade it and remove all the delays that make it difficult to establish investment projects, and eliminate the problem of neglect completely, and economist Dr. Nabil Jumaa expects that the growth of the agricultural sector will increase from 31 percent to about 80 percent in the event that what was stated in the last president’s speech is embodied in reality, because Algeria has not yet fully exploited all the means and tools on the ground, and that by establishing the Agricultural Real Estate Agency, we will reach 100 percent food security without bidding, in the face of the existence of a political will to develop agriculture, and what The work of the field will be facilitated by an inspection committee in the presidency, which will settle all the imbalances that investors suffer from in the future, especially to our knowledge. The same speaker says that all management rates are in the green box, similar to the percentage Liquidity, financing, the percentage of agricultural property management, the percentage of structure, farming, and profitability, and the Prime Minister’s decision obligating banks to finance agricultural projects.

The president focuses on the agricultural sector in all his speeches

On the other hand, the expert in economic and financial affairs, Dr. Nabil Jomaa, called for the need to exploit arable lands, whose area exceeds more than 30 percent, in order to give a new impetus to the agricultural sector, and to expedite the use of all means available in Algeria, including human and financial ones, and the recommendation of the President The Republic to comprehensively cover this sector, who showed his keenness – according to Jumaa – and his official and in-depth focus on this sector in all his speeches. Dr. Jumaa indicated that there are efforts being made and an actual will from the Algerian farmer, and what we lack is nothing but eliminating the dilemma of administrative bureaucracy, especially what He concerned the issue of distributing fertilizers to farmers, granting concessions to actual investors, and went back to saying that with the entry of the only window, the activation of the Agricultural Real Estate Management Agency and the reform of the banking system, everything will be fine, especially since Algeria says the same speaker that there are female investors who produce agricultural materials on Similar to biological potatoes and others, pointing out that Algeria can be the stand of the world, after agriculture has become a strategic weapon.

We seek to make a breakthrough in the field of agriculture

For his part, Director of Public Relations at Atlas Agriculture Company, Janhani Abdel Hakim, confirmed to Al-Hiwar: “One of the priorities and objectives that Atlas Agriculture Company seeks to achieve is to make Algeria dispense with buying wheat in the global market, which made us at the present time focus all activities on the wheat sector.” Agriculture, especially if we know, says the same speaker, that the two warring countries seize the first ranks in global wheat production, and given the ongoing war between them, as these two countries work to direct domestic consumption, and we have no alternative now but to produce Algerian wheat, and therefore his initial project is to focus on security Food in Algeria, and one of the company’s tasks is to revitalize the desert lands, bring the latest new agricultural technologies, as well as train and train the rising generation in the field of agriculture, as well as improve the standard of living for the residents of the region, and invest in the basics