Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Security in Tunisia: Challenges, Existing Policies, and Way Forward

Tunisia is a small North-African country with a dry Mediterranean climate. It is among the poorest countries in terms of water availability (450 m3/capita/year). With 516,000 farms, the agricultural sector occupies 65% of the country’s land, contributes with 12.6% to the GDP, and employs 15% of the labor force. The agricultural production represents 9% of the total export earnings. Besides cereals (wheat and barley), Tunisian farmers grow olives, dates, and fresh fruits for both export and domestic consumption. Meat and vegetables are also important consumption commodities. The main agricultural exports are olive oil, dates and citrus. The EU is the principal trading partner for Tunisia. Agricultural products, mainly cereals, represent 8% of total imports and agricultural trade balance is negative (about 40% deficit). Most of climate change projection models foresee a significant decrease (10–35%) in rainfall and an increase (1.9–2.9 °C) in temperature during this century. It is expected that climate change will affect negatively many sectors (i.e., tourism, health, etc.) but the heaviest impacts will affect the agricultural sector as it depends largely on natural resources (soil, water, etc.) and meteorological conditions. The main impacts of climate change on Tunisian agriculture would be a disruption of the cropping cycle for the main agricultural products. The country’s food security is severely threatened by such impacts, particularly in both terms of quantity and quality of agricultural products. About 83% of the severely food-insecure households belong to the poorest (50%) and poor (33%) sections of the Tunisian population. The objective of Tunisia’s food security strategy is to make improvements in the living standards of the population while taking full advantage of the contributions of the agricultural sector to economic and rural development, poverty reduction, and employment generation. A focus on improving household nutrition and food security among disadvantaged groups is also made. To cope with these challenging issues, Tunisia has been engaged for the last three decades in elaborating various climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. A special focus has been devoted to the agriculture sector as it is the main pillar of the food security through implementing institutional and technical measures. Nevertheless, the integration with other sectors as well as mainstreaming the climate imperative in economic development plans of the country are highly needed.