Enterprise News | 8 July 2024
Algeria and Italy’s Bonifiche Ferraresi sign EUR 430 mn agricultural agreement
Algeria inks agricultural agreement to boost food security: Algeria’s Agriculture Ministry has signed a EUR 420 mn (USD 455 mn) agricultural agreement with Italian agro-industrial group Bonifiche Ferraresi (BF) aimed at boosting food security and self-sufficiency in key crops in Algeria, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
What we know: The pair will turn 36k hectares of land in the town of Timimoun in south central Algeria into a productive agricultural field to grow wheat, beans, and other crops, Bloomberg writes. 49% of the funding will come from Algeria’s investment fund and BF will provide the remaining funds.
Part of bigger plans at play: Algeria plans to also reclaim 500k hectares in the south over the next three years, and to increase grain-farming plots by 18% with the help of international investors, including Italian and Qatari firms, Agriculture Minister Youcef Cherfa said last week according to Bloomberg. As for Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revealed a EUR 5.5 bn investment plan to strengthen diplomatic ties with Africa including in the energy sector.
Algeria’s crops have suffered from months of drought: Algeria is set to become the world’s fifth largest importer of soft wheat this year due to months of climate-change induced drought that have affected cereal production capacity. The country is one of the most water stressed in the world, meeting less than a third of the World Bank’s per capita water scarcity threshold. Boosting self-sufficiency in key crops will further the 2020-2024 Agriculture Roadmap under which Algeria has set a target to reduce its annual USD 10 bn food imports by 25%.