In the middle of a wasteland in the southern suburbs of Tunis, converted into an “official point of sale” of cattle before the Eid el-Adha festival, celebrated in Tunisia and in the Muslim world on Wednesday June 28, dust and the sheep get confused. Facing the stands lined up one after the other, potential buyers parade to choose the animal to sacrifice. A pick-up truck full of beasts, which has just arrived, is taken by storm.
Hidden under her large straw hat, Kenza observes the scene, with a smirk. “Look, they’re fighting for the last animals,” chuckles the elegant grandmother, not much taller than the tallest sheep. The quip hides a certain bitterness: “I come here every year and I’ve never seen this. The prices are very high and the animals that remain are too small to be killed. »
A breeder tries to make her change her mind. “Madame, I have this one left and another one over there,” says Mabrouk, in his fifties, from Kairouan. In vain. The lady will leave the place empty-handed. “Sheep are too expensive this year, bullshit!” “, grumbles a passerby, on edge, to the attention of Mabrouk.
In recent months, Tunisia has experienced soaring prices with annual inflation hovering around 10%. It is basic food products, including meat, that are experiencing the greatest surges. With the Eid celebration to which Tunisians are very attached, the price for a sheep now fluctuates between 800 and 1,000 dinars (from 240 to 300 euros), more than double the minimum wage.
The agricultural model seems to be running out of steam
“Food prices went up, gas prices went up, everything went up. So yes, the sheep has increased! “, gets carried away the breeder. After calming down, he backs up his point. “The price of fodder has more than doubled, I can no longer afford to feed my animals. So I have less and I have to sell them for more. Not to mention the rising cost of living. »
If the price of animals to be sacrificed has increased so much, it is also because they crystallize many contemporary problems of Tunisia. In addition to inflation, livestock production is facing the consequences of global warming. “Grazing is increasingly restricted due to increasing drought in recent years. For these same reasons, the price of foods rich in fiber such as hay or straw have soared,” analyzes Karim Daoud, farmer and president of the Farmers’ Union (Synagri). In addition to destroying pasture, drought favors the reduction of livestock, he adds.
As a result, breeders are “forced to fall back on concentrated feed, consisting mainly of corn and soy” that they seek on international markets. With the war in Ukraine and more recently the drought in North America, prices have also risen sharply. Feeding sheep – like other livestock – has become very expensive, while it “represents 60 to 70% of the cost of producing a kilo of meat”, says Mr. Daoud.
Professionals in the sector also encounter difficulties in obtaining concentrated feed despite public subsidies for some of them, such as barley and wheat bran. With the explosion of prices on international markets, the Tunisian authorities had to take measures. “To reduce the cost of subsidies, the state decreases the quantities of subsidized foods. It is therefore necessary to go through the parallel market, which increases the costs for producers, observes Aziz Bouhejba, a farmer from the Zaghouan region, contacted by telephone. The state no longer has the means to finance such large volumes. »
At a time when Tunisia is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a loan of 1.9 billion dollars to bail out a state budget exhausted by public subsidies, among other things, the agricultural model seems to be running out of steam. “There are solutions,” says Daoud. In the light of climate issues, we need to reflect on agricultural policy. The Ministry of Agriculture has a lot of studies and data in its hands. Choices have to be made. Tunisia has potential, but we cannot stay in the same patterns that were developed in the 1960s. By dint of repeating the same thing, we are the biggest ruminants,” he concludes cynically.
