The head of the National Chamber of Agriculture (NCA), Mohamed Yazid Hambli, welcomed the latest decisions of the president of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to promote the agricultural sector and support farmers, to ensure food security, considered as a strategic issue.
In a statement to APS, Mr. Hambli estimated that the decisions announced Tuesday by the President of the Republic, in particular those concerning the support of banks to investors in cold and storage rooms, are « very important because they represent a key point to resolve the problem of fluctuating food prices as well as the problem of shortages that the market experiences from time to time. »
In this context, he considered that storage is an essential condition for controlling food prices and guaranteeing abundance, considering that the lack of storage infrastructure is at the origin of the sporadic shortage which affects the market.
Mr. Hambli therefore estimated that investment in cold rooms could solve this problem, regulate the market and preserve the interests of farmers and consumers.
Regarding the President’s call to expand irrigated areas by an additional 1 million hectares using wastewater, Mr. Hambli considered this initiative necessary due to the increase in the population, which is expected to reach 55 million inhabitants in the years to come, as the President of the Republic mentioned.
The transition to modern and developed agriculture
Regarding the creation of agricultural cooperatives, Mr. Hambli affirmed that cooperatives are essential for the development of the sector, adding that the transition to modern and developed agriculture requires energizing and supporting the cooperative system, due to its importance, in the face of climate change and the lack of agricultural land.
To boost the number of these cooperatives on the national territory, the president of the National Chamber of Agriculture calls for facilitating farmers’ access to credits, particularly subsidized credits. You should know that since the relaxation of the regulatory texts governing Algerian agricultural cooperatives, put into force since 2020, no less than 160 new cooperatives have emerged, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr. Hambli affirmed that it is within our reach if we bring together all intergovernmental actions. “It is within our reach, there are already farmers who make 40 to 50 quintals per hectare,” he estimates, adding that in the South, there are people who make 80 to 90 quintals per hectare. per hectare with full irrigation. “So if there is someone who has succeeded in doing it, we can easily generalize it through the federation of all government actions,” explains the president of the CNA.
