Tunisia irrigated agriculture: Irrigation policies and land regulation policies

Abstract

Since Independence (1956), the mobilization of productive resources (land, water) and the improvement of their utilization rate have been the main tools of Tunisia s agricultural policy. In order to implement this policy and achieve the desired objectives of agricultural development, the State has mobilized a series of financial (investments), legal (agrarian reforms) and institutional (monitoring, support to irrigated farmers) tools. The economic liberalization starting in the 1980s, led to the privatization of access to water and land through the granting of property rights that made it possible to modify the rules of collective management. Thus, the development of irrigation generated a rapid change in the practices of access to land resources, which led to a profound dynamic involving different actors (small farmers, agro-entrepreneurs, State). While the privatization of water and land resource management bore results in terms of agricultural production intensification and creation of an agriculture integrated to the market, it now seems to be encountering limits.