3 days ago
Policy briefs' to safeguard agriculture in Tunisia!
The use of alternative pest control methods instead of conventional pesticides is now recognized in Tunisia as a key driver for food security, consumer health, and environmental protection.
Tunisian authorities also promote preventive control methods in order to reduce the harmful effects of pesticides.
The aim is to promote the agroecological approach and integrated pest management to ensure sustainable agriculture, replacing, as much as possible, external inputs with natural regulatory processes that should be encouraged.
In this context, the WWF North Africa office plans to develop two policy briefs relating to the revision of standards for the use of chemical inputs in agriculture and the reform of the agricultural subsidy system.
A call for applications has therefore been launched to select a consulting firm that will be responsible for drafting these policy briefs, which will propose ideas for reflection or action, with the ultimate goal of ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources.
The objective is also to promote biological inputs and to integrate ecological and social criteria into the system for granting agricultural subsidies.
'These two instruments are considered structuring tools because they shape the technical and economic choices of agricultural producers, influence the health of ecosystems, and determine the direction of public investments.'
Harmful effects of current practices
According to WWF, the persistence of current practices, undifferentiated subsidies, extensive use of chemical inputs, lack of environmental targeting, increases pressures on biodiversity and undermines Tunisia's international commitments, particularly within the framework of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Given the urgency of the transition, these policy briefs are seen as a decisive lever for awareness-raising and advocacy, particularly with political decision-makers, Parliament, sectoral ministries (Agriculture, Finance, Environment), donors, and technical partners.
These documents should present a clear, well-argued, and feasible vision of the reforms to be undertaken, based on the results of collective work from national workshops, the results of online consultations, national regulatory frameworks, international commitments, and best practices from comparable experiences.
As part of its commitment to biodiversity, WWF North Africa has implemented the 'BIODEV 2030' project, which is an experimental approach to biodiversity mainstreaming carried out in 15 pilot countries with diverse socioeconomic, environmental, and geographic contexts, including Tunisia.
Through a process centered on multi-stakeholder dialogue based on science, the project aims to contribute to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal agreement in these countries by encouraging the adoption of productive practices that reconcile biodiversity and development.
In truth, the agricultural use of pesticides is a necessary evil… Their harmful impacts on human health and the environment are well-known disadvantages.
Moreover, in all their varieties, whether insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, or others, their role is to secure harvests, preserve crop quality, and protect crops against biological aggressors.
Without action, there would be no agricultural products, no way to safeguard harvests or protect crops from biological attackers such as pests and parasitic insects.
