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Professor Ali Daoudi of the National Agricultural College of Harrah welcomed the progress of irrigation districts in Algeria, saying that the districts must invent their own Saharan agricultural model To avoid repeating the mistakes of Saudi Arabia.
He also called for the development of rainfed agriculture and the search for means suitable for such activities in order to avoid the duality between the two forms of agriculture.
The speaker noted that in 20 years, Algeria has increased its irrigated area from 300,000 to 1.4 million hectares. “At the end of the 1990s, we had 300,000 hectares of irrigated area, and today we have 1.4 million hectares, which has enabled all the gains in the agricultural sector. It is irrigation that has allowed the growth rates of the agricultural sector to be maintained and consolidated in recent years. It is the main lever for agricultural intensification and its control is an important issue,” he explained in an interview with Editorial Channel III.
Professor Daoudi clarified that groundwater plays a key role in the irrigation of Algerian farmland. “Surface water represents only 200,000 hectares of irrigated area,” he said, mentioning that the mobilization of groundwater in northern Algeria “has almost reached its limit.”
“In the north, it is difficult to get water to irrigate the land, except to improve efficiency. That is, to irrigate the upper surface with the same amount of water. There are also other water controls, especially to purify and desalinate wastewater,” Mr Daoudi explained.
This advancement significantly increased the productivity of crops including potato and wheat, with production reaching a peak of 70 quintals.
However, the speaker recalled the need to develop the most efficient irrigation technology, asking: “How can we irrigate more areas with the same amount of water? »
Ali Daoudi stressed that in the case of Saharan agriculture, the problem is to invent a specific Algerian model that distinguishes it from the agricultural case of Saudi Arabia, which was characterized by the failure of wheat production after the depletion of the country’s groundwater reserves, which led to a new strategy that includes the development of overseas lands.
Taking the example of the Rechaiga (Tiaret) region, which the expert had the opportunity to study for several years, he noted that progress in potato and onion production was accompanied by a drop in the water table.
He therefore called for consultations between farmers and administration to achieve more rational use of water resources.
In this context, he reviewed the interest of small hydropower in better mobilizing surface water, citing mountain lakes as an example.
Regarding non-irrigated so-called rain-fed crops, Ali Davoudi pleaded for more attention to this type of agriculture, especially “because it is the only possible activity in these areas”, adding that “in terms of territorial dynamics, these rural areas have an important role. »
Promote rain-fed agriculture
Ali Daoudi said rain-fed agriculture “needs to develop, needs a model for development” and hoped Algeria could develop an alternative model.
The expert believes that agriculture has its own particularities, whether in the mountains or in the steppes. He also insisted on the need for a “long-term” approach, opposing the “tyranny of the short term”, stressing that food security and sustainable development require a “high-level vision”.
He therefore called for the control of drought-resistant genetic resources, the search for appropriate farming techniques and the prevention and control of land erosion.
In the case of sorghum and millet farming, Ali Dawudi wants to focus on using “drought-resistant” cultivars.
He also drew attention to the twin risks of investment levels between irrigated agriculture and rain-fed agriculture, with the former benefiting from heavy investments. “We have to go all out,” he lamented about rain-fed agriculture.
In this regard, he noted that the national pilot farm, which has the most fertile land in Algeria, should serve as a model for farmers to use modern technologies and emphasize the use of agronomists’ skills.
Rain-fed agriculture, a possible alternative
The issue of optimizing rain-fed agricultural production has been a topic of concern to the Algerian public authorities on several occasions.
In January 2023, during a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, asked operators in the sector to aim to increase average production from 17 to 30 quintals.
If some farmers currently reach this average in drought conditions, many still use basic technologies.
Sometimes wheat is sown without fertilizer or weeding. When harvested, the stalks are used to feed sheep, and no restoration of the soil is done to maintain its fertility. In such cases, the effects of lack of rain are magnified.
Beginning in mid-1975, assessments conducted by the Field Crop Development Institute concluded that there was a need to find new ways to grow more cereals.
In 2010, at an international workshop in Setif, solutions were proposed within the framework of conservation agriculture.
An approach that combines the abandonment of tillage with substitution with direct seeding technology, partial return of straw to the fields, and crop rotation.
To better integrate cereal farming with sheep farming, local studies also recommend using feed mixtures on grazed fallow land and fertilizing these fallow lands to triple the biomass produced.
Each technology needs to be adapted to local conditions and requires a large amount of material and human resources.
For Ali Daoudi, the development of rain-fed agriculture in Algeria is particularly important because this sector involves the largest areas and the largest number of farmers and households.
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