Tunisia: Sousse attack has led to a 35% decline in prices of agricultural produce

The head of Tunisia’s Union of Agriculture and Fishing Abdelmajid Zar said on Tuesday that there has been a significant decrease in the amount of agricultural produce required by the country’s tourist resorts in the wake of the recent terror attack on Sousse, which has resulted in a 35 per cent decline in wholesale markets compared to previous seasons.

Zar’s statements came in a press seminar held in the union’s headquarters in Tunis about the impact of the Sousse terrorist attack on the agricultural sector.

In June, a militant attack on a tourist resort in the coastal area of Sousse resulted in the death of 38 tourists, mostly British citizens.

Zar noted that the prices of agricultural products have declined in Tunisia as a result. He said that the decline in hotel occupancy following the Sousse attack resulted in a decrease in the demand for agricultural products, which has affected the market price of such goods.

The price of tomatoes, for example, has decreased by 60 per cent compared to their price before the Sousse attack; while the price of dates has decreased by 28 per cent and that of peppers by 26 per cent.

Zar described the losses in the Tunisian agricultural sector as “unprecedented”, nothing that it is Tunisian farmers who are bearing the brunt of these losses.

Zar called on the Tunisian government to “save the agricultural sector and support farmers directly.”

He noted that the supplementary budget law has ignored the difficult situation that Tunisian farmers are going through and that it does not include any procedures that suggest governmental interest in this sector.

Last week, the Tunisian government passed a supplementary budget bill for 2015 estimated at 27.8 billion Tunisian dinars ($14 billion).

Zar said that the consequences of such negligence will surface clearly in the next agricultural season. He warned that Tunisia is on the verge of “a complete collapse in farming production, which is no longer able to withstand the successive crises that it has faced.”