Zaghouan farmers are disrupting the olive grove. Refusal to lower purchase prices

Zaghouan state certificates today saw a downturn and slowdown in olive harvesting after farmers refused to continue harvesting a week after the start of the season. Farmers in the region have refused to accept a market price of about Dinar and 200 milligrams per kilogram of fruit.

The producers confirmed that the current financial balance could not cover the high production costs and irrigation expenses, as well as increase the daily wage of the agricultural worker's hand which is between 35 and 40 dinars per worker. This fall in prices coincides with climate impacts caused by continued high temperatures, which is the latest ripening of fruits and the current decline of the oil age within modern times.

Conservative farmers have called for urgent official government intervention to adjust prices and adopt mechanisms to ensure crop sustainability and protection from damage and cover the growing burdens on agricultural investors. Protesters stressed the need to revise prices in order to maintain the balance of the production system, especially as current prices are causing financial losses for farmers as the harvest season begins.

The regional delegation for agricultural development in Zaghouan has estimated the current season to be about 80,000 tonnes of olives and 16,000 tonnes of oil, spanning over 60,000 hectares of woodland. Sales and purchases of olives are subject to the law of freedom of price and competition based on supply and demand, without prior algebraic pricing by official authorities at the production level.

In the coming days, attention is focused on whether the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Oil Council can respond to holding settlement sessions between the parties concerned. This endeavour aims to activate intervention mechanisms that ensure the protection of the disease and the normal resumption of embryonic processes in various parts of the body and its contemporaries.