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Natural and Regulatory Underlying Factors of Food Dependency in Algeria
Abstract
Since its independence in 1962, Algeria adopted several public food policies with the objective to nourish its population. To do so, two options were proposed: either raise the local production or import from international markets. Nowadays, the country adopts a combination of these two options by supporting local producers while seeking new foreign suppliers. The main objective of such policies was to meet a growing food demand generated by a rising population, improved incomes, and changing food consumption patterns. This chapter aims to analyse the impact of those policies—mainly subsidies—on local market supply. The results show that Algeria’s food consumption has increased significantly in the last half-century both quantitatively and qualitatively, resulting in an increased dependency on foreign suppliers. This dependency can be explained not only by population growth and rising households’ incomes, but also by the agricultural policies in place and inefficient economic governance. Yields are low compared to what could technically be achieved because they are constrained by insufficient use of productive inputs, lack of (or outdated) equipment, irrational use of irrigation water, poor access to loans, land fragmentation, and the decrease in rainfall.
Our analysis focuses on the spatio-temporal characteristics of traffic accidents in Algeria, we record annually peaks of road accidents on sections of highway, national roads, etc. as we record peaks during months of the year, a few days a month or during hours of the day. Thus, our goal is to identify where and when that record the most significant statistics, and understand the trend in claims, to fully redeploy the resources to mitigate the hecatomb on our roads. To achieve this, we opted for a descriptive analytical study, based on the description of the scourge "road insecurity" at the national level, as well as the analysis of the causes and consequences of this scourge in space and time.
We pointed out several results, among them: the road traffic accidents always preferred the period of the holidays, so 32% of the accidents are recorded during the month of July and August, the most deadly month of the year is that of Ramadan, the days of departure and the weekend return are the most significant, and the most sober part of the day is during the evening between 18:00 and midnight; regarding the accident site, the RN1 road and the East-West highway are the deadliest, the wilayas of the center of the country are at the head of the pack in terms of traffic accidents, and the wilaya of Msila in matters killed in traffic accidents; Young drivers are the most involved in traffic accidents that occurred in 2017 and 2018.
La crise sanitaire de la COVID-19 a poussé certains gouvernements à modifier leurs politiques commerciales en matière alimentaire, tendant à restreindre les exportations et à faciliter les importations. Ces mesures restrictives peuvent, quoique les stocks mondiaux soient élevés, faire grimper les prix des denrées alimentaires, nuire aux revenus et exacerber la faim dans le monde. L'Algérie a pris des mesures de constitution des stocks stratégiques qui semblent actuellement satisfaisantes, mais qui risquent d'affronter des défis futurs à cause des volatilités de prix sur le marché mondial. Pour la filière lait, nous proposons une réflexion pour réorienter la politique de subventions des prix vers une politique basée sur le ciblage. Cela passera par la création des pôles de production intégrés, la segmentation de soutien selon les tailles d'exploitations, et une préférence pour les espèces rustiques selon les étages bioclimatiques. Nous proposons également l'organisation des circuits de commercialisation et la vulgarisation de l'organisation professionnelle afin que les éleveurs soient une force de proposition en cas de crises.
RESUMÉ : La sécurité alimentaire de l'Algérie est en grande partie dépendante de deux facteurs fortement impactés par la pandémie de la covid-19 : les finances publiques et le marché mondial des produits alimentaires. Le poids des importations dans la satisfaction des besoins alimentaires du pays témoigne de cette sensibilité aux perturbations du fonctionnement de ce marché mondial. A partir de ce constat, quatre points de fragilité sont susceptibles d'être directement impactés par la crise économique engendrée par la pandémie : la demande locale pour les produits alimentaires et la sécurité alimentaire des ménages économiquement vulnérables ; la production agricole et alimentaire nationale ; les chaînes logistiques locales d'approvisionnement des marchés en denrées alimentaires ; ainsi que les importations alimentaires. Chaque aspect est analysé de près pour identifier les facteurs de risques qui pourraient perturber l'accès physique et/ou économique des consommateurs à une alimentation saine et équilibrée durant les prochains mois.
This study globally analyzes the nonlinear relationship between cereal import dependency and total renewable water resources per capita by testing for potential thresholds in water resources. Data are from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and consider the years of 2002, 2007, and 2012. The results show evident ceiling effects with a threshold of 1588 m3/(capita/year) in the multiple predictor model. Above this value, the total renewable water resources per capita no longer have a considerable effect on cereal import dependency. Importantly, we found that if integrated water resource management improves, cereal import dependency will increase for countries with total renewable water resources per capita between 1588 m3/(capita/year) and 5000 m3/(capita/year), but not for countries below or equal to the threshold of 1588 m3/(capita/year). Water-scarce countries above the threshold use cereal imports as a coping strategy to save limited national water resources. This strategy might be suggested to extremely water-scarce countries below the threshold to increase their water use efficiency. Global solidarity of grain exporters with water-scarce countries is required to guarantee their food security, while water-scarce countries need to overcome their skepticism of foreign dominance through food imports.
La politique de subvention du lait (à la production, à la collecte, et à la transformation) a permis l’accès des petits éleveurs de la wilaya de Sétif à la chaîne de valeur de la filière. Cette politique était consolidée par une autorisation ministérielle, en 2009, permettant la collecte du lait de tous les élevages (agréés ou non). Cet article apporte une démonstration à partir d’une enquête effectuée auprès d’une centaine d’éleveurs dans cette région. Les résultats montrent que les subventions de l’Office National du lait (ONIL) a permis l’augmentation du nombre d’éleveurs conventionnés avec les laiteries. Cet accroissement du nombre s’est accompagné par un accroissement du pouvoir de négociation des collecteurs avec les éleveurs et avec les laiteries (par leur stratégie de collecte) qui ont un très faible niveau d’influence sur les choix des éleveurs laitiers.
This paper analyzes the evolution of life expectancy in Algeria since Independence in 1962, using an epidemiological transition framework. The general transition trend was fitted with an S-logistic function, while a break-point analysis – including jumps – was performed to detect methodological changes and extreme event effects. Results show evidence of the epidemiological transition of the Algerian population. Apparent jumps in the time series of life expectancy evolution appear to be due to updates of the correction factors for death under registration, misetimation of the population structure during the intercensal periods, and impacts of the civil war during the 1990s.
The world has seen continued famine, starvation, and malnutrition. Starvation and malnutrition have a negative impact on health, leading to poor productivity, and thus gradually affecting overall economic growth. This paper estimates the impact of food security on the economic growth of dry-land developing countries. The objective of this study is to measures the impact of food security on economic growth directly and through poverty, life expectancy, and total employment. This study employs a dynamic panel data model known as the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The finding of this study has proved that food security has an impact on economic growth, especially in dry-land developing countries. This research has identified that food security has a significant positive impact on food security, as an increase in food security increases economic growth. Nonetheless, food security also has an impact on economic growth in terms of life expectancy, total employment, and poverty, whereas life expectancy and total employment with better food security have a positive impact on economic growth, reduction in poverty, achieving food security and enhancing economic growth.
Rapport de synthèse. Initiative ENPARD Méditerranée (Commission Européenne)
In 2008, public authorities in Algeria created the "Syrpalac" mechanism in order to reduce price fluctuation of consumption potatoes. The mechanism calls private storage operators for the constitution of the stocks of regulation. It is a voluntary policy, whose success is depending on the effective implication of these storage operators. Our research consists on identifying factors that determine the implication of the storage operators to Syrpalac. Our results show that these factors are the perception of financial incentive, the profit margin, the diversification of the storage operators, the production area, the volumes and the mode of storage. They suggest that policy improvements are possible, which will help the regulatory authority.
The 2007–2008 hunger riots recalled that the issue of food insecurity was a major and urgent challenge for agriculture. Moreover, the world ambition for development, which resulted in the eighth millennium development goals, is more urgent than ever. Agriculture is particularly an effective channel that helps achieve these objectives. In this context, this paper aims at examining the impact of agriculture on food security in North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt) over the 2000/2010 period. The results that were achieved by using a fixed effect model show that there is a positive and significant impact of the agricultural added value on food security. Since agriculture is a crucial instrument for food security, it is worth being considered now as a fully-fledged sector.
Le présent article présente un point de situation sur la production céréalière en Algérie, à travers un examen à priori de l'importance des produits céréaliers dans la vie quotidienne de la population, le poids de ce secteur dans les dépenses engagées des importations. Une analyse en termes de l'évolution de la production, des rendements et du taux d'autosuffisance et des politiques est ensuite entamée. Il en résulte en définitive que la production céréalière a connu une faible croissance comparativement à la consommation qui a fortement augmenté sous l'effet de la croissance démographique et du soutien par l'Etat des prix à la consommation. Conséquence : déconnexion de l'industrie céréalière de la sphère de production locale. Les efforts de l'intensification, de l'ajustement structurel ainsi que les actions du PNDA demeurent insuffisants à l'essor de la production céréalière qui reste tributaire de précipitations annuelles.
Food self-sufficiency gained increased attention in a number of countries in the wake of the 2007–08 international food crisis, as countries sought to buffer themselves from volatility on world food markets. Food self-sufficiency is often presented in policy circles as the direct opposite of international trade in food, and is widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency. This paper takes a closer look at the concept of food self-sufficiency and makes the case that policy choice on this issue is far from a straightforward binary choice between the extremes of relying solely on homegrown food and a fully open trade policy for foodstuffs. It shows that in practice, food self-sufficiency is defined and measured in a number of different ways, and argues that a broader understanding of the concept opens up space for considering food self-sufficiency policy in relative terms, rather than as an either/or policy choice. Conceptualizing food self-sufficiency along a continuum may help to move the debate in a more productive direction, allowing for greater consideration of instances when the pursuit of policies to increase domestic food production may make sense both politically and economically.
This contribution puts forward a historical, relational and interactive (HRI) approach to food sovereignty research. A historical lens allows us to understand the social structures and institutions that condition the politics of food over time and the ways in which the agency of relevant state and societal actors has been, and continues to be, enhanced and exercised, or not, in the political contestation over the food system. A relational lens allows us to capture the process-oriented nature of food sovereignty – the ways in which the very meanings and attempted practices of food sovereignty are being dynamically and contentiously shaped and reshaped over time. An interactive lens allows us to analyze how actors within the state and in society are dialectically linked, molding the construction of food sovereignty through their interactions. Rather than an enquiry into food sovereignty per se, this piece is about efforts toward food sovereignty, partly to address a tendency in the literature and political debates to conflate the two. This is thus an investigation into food sovereignty construction, meaning how food sovereignty is being articulated and attempted, as well as contested – including resisted, refracted or reversed – in a given setting. The case of Venezuela is examined as one of a growing number of countries where food sovereignty has been adopted into state policy and among the longest-running experiments in its attempted construction. Concluding reflections are shared on the extent to which the HRI framework can help us understand the current conjunctural crisis facing Venezuela’s food system, and implications for food sovereignty research and activism more broadly.
La France est engagée dans la réduction de ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) au titre de conventions internationales, de directives et de lignes directrices européennes. Par la loi de programme fixant les orientations de la politique énergétique (POPE) du 13 juillet 2005, la France s’est donné des objectifs propres, ayant pour objectif une division par 4 des émissions de GES entre 1990 et 2050 (« facteur 4 »). Cet objectif a été renforcé par la Loi sur la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte adoptée le 22 juillet 2015. De ces différents engagements, découle la nécessité de dessiner des itinéraires possibles et de mettre en place des moyens pour atteindre les objectifs.
La France, par son climat favorable et son histoire, est un pays où l’agriculture joue un rôle important. En 2012, l’agriculture occupe 51% de la surface du territoire métropolitain (Teruti-Agreste 2012). Elle représente près de 20% des émissions nationales de gaz à effet de serre, et constitue donc un secteur à enjeu pour l’atténuation du changement climatique et de ses impacts.
Cette note décrit des scénarios visant à évaluer la contribution possible de l’agriculture à l’enjeu climatique à horizon 2035, soit dans 20 ans. Ces scénarios sont issus de deux travaux différents réalisés en parallèle entre 2014 et 2015 : d’une part, les scénarios « ADEME », issus d’une réflexion interne à l’Agence, d’autre part, les scénarios « DGEC » , issus des réflexions d’un groupe de travail piloté par la Direction Générale de l’Energie et du Climat du Ministère en charge de l’écologie et le ministère de l’agriculture intégrant des experts agricoles, ayant pour objectifs de traduire les orientations stratégiques de la France pour alimenter différentes obligations de « reporting » (engagements communautaires et nationaux) et contribuer à l’élaboration de politiques publiques (stratégie nationale bas carbone – SNBC, programmations pluriannuelles de l’énergie – PPE, plan de réduction des pollutions atmosphériques – PREPA).
Dans le cadre de ce travail, l’outil ClimAgri® diffusé par l’ADEME a permis d’accompagner la scénarisation et d’évaluer les performances énergie / GES des différents scénarios. Concernant la ferme France, les travaux ont notamment mis en évidence l’importance des données d’activité (par exemple : surface disponible pour l’agriculture, taille des cheptels notamment bovins), dont l’influence, positive ou négative, sur les émissions de gaz à effet de serre, peut s’avérer supérieure aux mesures d’atténuation (par exemple : méthanisation des déjections animales). Au niveau de l’élevage, le nombre de bovins et leur mode d’alimentation, constituent des variables de 1er ordre pour deux raisons : d’une part, les émissions de GES liées à la fermentation entérique des bovins représentent un poste d’émission majeur ; d’autre part, l’alimentation des animaux représente aujourd’hui une part majoritaire de la surface agricole utile (SAU) française. Au niveau des cultures, la réduction de la fertilisation minérale azotée et sa substitution par des sources d’azote organique (ex : légumineuses, effluents d’élevage) est un levier majeur. L’artificialisation des sols sous la pression urbaine et le retournement des prairies constituent des facteurs clés en raison du déstockage du carbone présent dans les sols.
Au bilan, ces scénarios mettent en évidence la possibilité physique d’atteindre une réduction des émissions de GES de 20% environ en 2035 pour l’agriculture et la forêt, en utilisant l’ensemble des leviers disponibles. Le levier stockage de carbone dans les sols et la biomasse est significatif mais doit être considéré à une échelle plus globale intégrant les forêts et l’artificialisation des sols. Le développement des énergies renouvelables basées sur la biomasse permet de contribuer à l’atténuation des émissions de GES grâce à la substitution de ressources fossiles, tous secteurs d’activités confondus, et elle est une source de diversification des revenus pour les agriculteurs. La substitution ne permet cependant qu’une réduction limitée des émissions du secteur, comme les consommations énergétiques ne représentent que 10% des émissions agricoles.
L’article analyse le fonctionnement en réseau des jeunes agriculteurs itinérants, figure
émergente des filières maraîchères en Algérie, néanmoins très peu connue et encore moins
reconnue par les décideurs politiques. Cette analyse repose sur les donne´es d’une enquête
réalisée auprès de 108 producteurs de pomme de terre dans la région d’Aflou ,wilaya de
Laghouat. Par leur fonctionnement réticulaire, ces producteurs interviennent comme
« connecteurs » d’individus et de territoires en combinant la maîtrise des techniques
culturales et la maîtrise des marche ´s des facteurs de production et des produits agricoles
(souvent imparfaits, voire absents localement), mettant ainsi en rapport des marche ´s et des
sites de production éclatés dans l’espace. Ils établissent ces connexions pour mener a `bien
leur propre production, mais aussi en tant qu’intermédiaires, avec donc un effet
entraînement sur l’économie agricole locale.
Informal funding in the agricultural sector of Algeria remains a subject receiving limited attention. This article presents the results of an empirical study aimed at characterizing the informal financing practices and exploring their structural determinants in four agricultural regions of the country. The study identified four main types of practices: standing crop sale with pre-financing, combined production, supplier credit and lending between individuals. These practices are present in all four regions, but in different proportions, related to the structural characteristics of the regions. Natural and socio-economic characteristics result in farming specificities, condition the informal funding opportunities offered farmers and influence their choices.
Encouraging Subversion : State Restructuring and De-collectivization of Land Tenure in the Bas-Chéliff Region, Algeria
This article analyses the governing of land tenure in Algeria by tracing, over three decades, the policy of de-collectivization in a Bas-Chéliff municipality. How did the State conduct and manage a process that threatens its own social base ? This article contends that, against usual assumptions about an authoritarian and rentier State, de-collectivization was not brutally imposed by modifying property rights (i.e. privatization of public land) and financial compensation for those who would lose their land. Instead the State acted slowly and hesitantly under contradictory pressures. More specifically, it encouraged a number of private actors to subvert existing formal arrangements : first, by financially strengthening private farmers living outside public lands ; and then, by tacitly authorizing them to rent parts of these lands. The task of putting some rural actors at the political center, while pushing others at the political margin is thus carried out flexibly, outside the confine of the law.
More than 70% of fresh water is used in agriculture in many parts of the world, but competition for domestic and industrial water use is intense. For future global food security, water use in agriculture must become sustainable. Agricultural water-use efficiency and water productivity can be improved at different points from the stomatal to the regional scale. A promising approach is the use of deficit irrigation, which can both save water and induce plant physiological regulations such as stomatal opening and reproductive and vegetative growth. At the scales of the irrigation district, the catchment, and the region, there can be many other components to a sustainable water-resources strategy. There is much interest in whether crop water use can be regulated as a function of understanding of physiological responses. If this is the case, then agricultural water resources can be reallocated to the benefit of the broader community. We summarize the extent of use and impact of deficit irrigation within China. A sustainable strategy for allocation of agricultural water resources for food security is proposed. Our intention is to build an integrative system to control crop water use during different cropping stages and actively regulate the plant's growth, productivity, and development based on physiological responses. This is done with a view to improving the allocation of limited agricultural water resources.
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Food access is one of the food security pillars. Food security encompasses physical and economic access to food. For most Mediterranean people affordability is a key factor determining access to food. Food affordability is dependent not only on food cost but also on the disposable income that can be spent on food. The paper aims at analysing food accessibility and affordability at household and country levels in the Mediterranean region. The paper uses secondary data from different sources (e.g. FAO, World Bank, the Economist, LABORSTA) to analyse the trends of different indicators: food affordability; food consumer price index; household food expenditure; cereals imports dependency; and Values of food imports over total merchandise exports. In March 2013, food affordability score of the Global Food Security Index ranged from 34.8 in Syria to 86.5 in France. The share of food consumption expenditure in total household expenditure is high e.g. 67.3% in Albania and 43.9% in Algeria. During the period 2005-2011, the highest increase of the FAO food consumer price index was recorded in Egypt followed by Turkey and Algeria. FAO consumer cereal price index increased more than meat price index in the period 2004-2012. Cereals import dependency is high in all Mediterranean Arab countries; up to 80% in drought years in Algeria. In the Palestinian Territories and Montenegro more than four-fifths of merchandise exports are dedicated to food imports. In the period 1990-92/2008-10, the coverage of food imports with total exports deteriorated especially in the Palestinian Territories, Cyprus and Croatia. Adequate and consistent economic access to safe, nutritious and high quality food, even in times of crisis, is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable food and nutrition security in the Mediterranean. However, accessible and affordable diets should not be taken for granted in the Mediterranean region.
Achieving global food security is one of the major challenges of the coming decades. In order to tackle future food security challenges we must understand the past. This study presents a historical analysis of global food availability, one of the key elements of food security. By calculating national level dietary energy supply and production for nine time steps during 1965-2005 we classify countries based on their food availability, food self-sufficiency and food trade. We also look at how diets have changed during this period with regard to supply of animal based calories. Our results show that food availability has increased substantially both in absolute and relative terms. The percentage of population living in countries with sufficient food supply (>2500 kcal/cap/d) has almost doubled from 33% in 1965 to 61% in 2005. The population living with critically low food supply (<2000 kcal/cap/d) has dropped from 52% to 3%. Largest improvements are seen in the MENA region, Latin America, China and Southeast Asia. Besides, the composition of diets has changed considerably within the study period: the world population living with high supply of animal source food (>15% of dietary energy supply) increased from 33% to over 50%. While food supply has increased globally, food self-sufficiency (domestic production>2500 kcal/cap/d) has not changed remarkably. In the beginning of the study period insufficient domestic production meant insufficient food supply, but in recent years the deficit has been increasingly compensated by rising food imports. This highlights the growing importance of food trade, either for food supply in importing countries or as a source of income for exporters. Our results provide a basis for understanding past global food system dynamics which, in turn, can benefit research on future food security.
Inter-annual variability, which characterizes the climate of Northern Algeria, is accentuated by climate change. In the steppe, where agro-pastoral activities are strongly dependent on rainfall, the increase of rainfall variability augments the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists, particularly those weakly endowed with resources, and compromises reproduction of their farming systems. Faced with this situation, these agro-pastoralists develop different adaptation strategies. A study of crop-livestock production systems in two localities in the Wilaya of Laghouat, conducted between 2008 and 2010, found that those who remain on rangelands after droughts mobilize resources from business partners during wet years through different types of agrarian contracts. These contracts concern the keeping of livestock or partnerships in livestock and cereal production.
Rapport de synthèse. Initiative ENPARD Méditerranée (Commission Européenne)
The peasant and rural origins of the political change in North Africa : The Algerian exception
Political revolutions in the world were generally preceded by crises in the rural areas and are the result of situations of decline in the peasant and rural conditions. The socio-economic contradictions and inequalities between rural and urban territories that now characterize the North African societies (Egypt and North Africa), combined with the effects of the global economic and food crisis of 2008 were followed by pre-insurgency riots/situations in the Maghreb countries and Egypt. In Algeria, the peasant and rural areas, which had played an active role in the national liberation movement, have been slightly visible in the social and political revolts that have marked the country in recent decades. The article attempts to provide an explanation for this paradox. It recalls the historical legacy and the role of workers’ collectives and their disappearance as a result of the privatization of land use, the crisis related to the external debt and its resolution in the 2000s after the upturn in oil prices and the increase of fiscal revenues, which allow today strong State interventions in the agricultural and rural sector and the resumption of redistributive actions in favor of the rural society.
Since the global food crisis of 2008 states have encouraged international agro-investments by their respective private sectors or have undertaken them directly via state-owned companies and sovereign wealth funds. This chapter analyses the crucial role played by national governments with the help of three case studies: the Gulf countries, China, and potential host countries. It thus shows the varying constraints experienced by these three cases and the strategies pursued to overcome them. States in the Gulf are heavily dependent on food imports and are concerned that export restrictions could undermine their food security. For the same reason, China has pursued a strategy of grain self-sufficiency, which is now being modified in the light of recent changes to diet and rises in demand. Governments in potential host countries and regions, like South East Asia, Russia, and Brazil, on the other hand, have sought to keep their agricultural export industries national, maximise their revenue streams, and leverage them for geopolitical purposes. While much of the literature has focused on ‘land grabbing’ by foreign states in developing countries, this chapter offers a different perspective by placing the interests of states into the context of twenty-first century food politics. It concludes that: the focus of investments has been on value chains downstream rather than on farmland in the upstream sector; that ‘security mercantilism’ is far more complex than the land acquisition processes themselves; and that emerging economies in Asia seek to brace themselves and to challenge the Western world in its hegemony over food production and virtual water trade.
Agricultural landscapes involve many factors. A single factor fails or moves, and the whole landscape changes. In Algeria, the political movement more than any other factor was affected many jolts in landscapes. Two major events have marked their stamp: colonization and independence. Since this back story, and from reform to reform, land structures have continued to change, and landscapes mutate (self-management, agrarian revolution, restructuration…). The multiplication of agricultural policies since 1962 has greatly influenced the constants and consistencies of land ownership on cropping systems, and on the relations of men to land, however, some remained fixed, dependent on the physical and social constraints weight.
Self-sufficiency in food grains has been a publicized goal of government policy in many developing countries. Among various
alternatives to achieve this goal, two policy options, output price support and input subsidy, both characterized by the government
intervention into market pricing, are evaluated by applying a simple demand-supply model to the Philippine rice economy. The
results demonstrate a possibility that a subsidy applied to modern inputs, such as fertilizer, that are being used below optimum
can be more beneficial than supporting product prices.
The total area of the Arab Region is about 14·2 million km2, 90% of it lies within arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. The area is characterized by harsh environment, fragile ecosystems and limited water resources and arable lands. Throughout its long history these lands were the main source of grain and animal production.By the end of this century and in spite of the national, regional and international efforts to combat desertification and mitigate the effect of drought and desiccation, desertification is still one of the major environmental problems in the Arab Region. The rapid increase in population by some 3% annually, considered among the highest worldwide, along with the changing of consumption patterns and life styles, resulting in increasing food demand, have hastened land degradation in this arid environment.Land degradation in the Arab Region due to misuse is widespread and is proceeding at accelerating rates. Failures of resource management policies are aggravated by overgrazing, overexploitation of water and land resources, overcultivation of marginal lands, deforestation, and the use of inappropriate technologies.This paper attempts to provide: •A synthesis and analysis of the status of desertification in the Arab Region.•Identification of the major causes and trends of land degradation.•Highlighting the limitations and constraints on combating desertification in the Arab Region.
Just before the global crisis soaring commodity prices pushed up inflation significantly, not least in EU neighbour countries at the Mediterranean. These price shocks affected public finances in the southern Mediterranean region, notably via government subsidies. Partly due to lags in the transmission of commodity prices into prices for final users the subsidies burden continued to be felt, despite the price falls registered in the wake of the credit crisis. We show that downward price rigidities play a role. Recently, commodity price pressures have re-emerged. We focus on food prices and analyse recent developments in food inflation in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the occupied Palestinian territories, Syria and Tunisia in comparison with other middle income economies. Subsidies on food and fuel are quantified per country for the period 2002-2010. The incremental government subsidies entail an estimated deterioration of the government balances of up to more than 2% of GDP in 2008 and, for most countries only slight improvements in the global recession year 2009. Ensuing longer-term challenges for public finances remain as inflation rises on the back of higher global economic growth. As recent events in Tunisia and Egypt illustrate, these can have important political implications. Finally, the paper discusses some options that can lead to more efficient government spending, even in the event of sharp swings in prices of basic necessities.
Une révolution tranquille: le PNDA
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Le développement de la filière lait en Algérie: de l’autosuffisance à la dépendance
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- F Chehat
Food Outlook-Biannual Report on Global Food Markets
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La Politique Alimentaire En Algérie : De L’autosuffisance à La Sécurité Alimentaire
- R Lebech
Utilisation des engrais par culture en Algérie
- Fao
Plant nutrition for food security. A guide for integrated nutriment management
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Chapitre 8-Assurer la sécurité alimentaire des populations, dans: CIHEAM éd
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