“This project is not simply ecological, but it can offer work to many young unemployed people and at the same time save a dying trade,” says Amyra Ben Abidi, who started her own enterprise producing items made from dried and handcrafted palm leaves
When Hayet Taboui was studying archaeology at university, her grandmother used to take her under the 2,500-year-old olive grove to receive a blessing before each exam. She did not believe in those odd and popular traditions, but that gesture would bind her forever to the ancient and wild trees of El Feija National Park, in northwest Tunisia, a few kilometres from the Algerian border.
In the last nine years the women-led association has reimagined new ways of farming which contribute to preserving biodiversity and boosting resilience to climate change: agroecology, community seed gardens, medical plants and the recovery of local varieties. The consequences of rising temperatures on agriculture are disastrous, but crop genetic resources can play a vital role in creating a more climate-resilient agriculture. Over centuries, resource-poor farmers have been using genetic diversity intelligently to develop varieties adapted to their own environmental stress conditions.
More than 150 inhabitants of the region, mainly women and youth, have been involved in this income generation project based on environment protection, ecotourism and the commercialisation of local products. After several years of working for a seed imported factory, Fatiha Mosbati has decided to return to her home village in the countryside, Souk Jdid, to set up an organic greenhouse project. In her greenhouse, she tries to recover local seeds from olive trees, vines and other species and distribute them to farmers in the Sidi Bouzid region.
In the last forty years, a large number of farmers have abandoned traditional and local seeds to buy imported hybrid seeds, as a consequence of decades of policies that have oriented Tunisian development towards monoculture farming systems, export-oriented companies and rent extraction. This is exactly what Amyra Ben Abidi, 25, thought when she finished her design studies. “I live in a very culturally rich place. I decided to recover our ancient family knowledge and make a living out of it”.
“This project is not simply ecological, but it can offer work to many young unemployed people and at the same time save a dying trade”.
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