The elusive food sovereignty: agriculture, dependencies and the crisis of the Tunisian state

For several decades, agricultural globalization rested on an implicit assumption: supply chains would remain broadly stable, and geopolitical crises would constitute only temporary disruptions.

The major operators in world grain trade viewed wars, sanctions or maritime tensions as anomalies that would quickly resolve themselves. This vision has gradually collapsed in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and then the tensions in the Middle East have profoundly altered the perception of risk in international agricultural markets. Global trading players now consider logistical disruptions, export restrictions, financial sanctions and regional conflicts not as accidents but as permanent components of how the world economy operates.

This transformation is particularly important for net food-importing countries such as Tunisia. World agricultural prices no longer depend solely on harvests and climatic conditions. They are now closely tied to geopolitical tensions, maritime freight costs, insurance, energy prices and the stability of international trade routes. Wheat is a perfect illustration of this shift. In the 1970s, the United States accounted for about half of world wheat exports. Today, Russia has become the world's leading exporter with nearly a quarter of the international market. The Black Sea has thus become a central space for global food security. The war in Ukraine showed just how vulnerable countries dependent on cereal imports can become to a regional geopolitical disruption.

Tunisia is among these particularly exposed economies. Its food model has historically rested on a social contract centered on the availability of cheap bread. Since the 1970s, the country's social stability has largely depended on the state's ability to guarantee access to subsidized cereal products. But this model is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain in a context of rising international costs, budgetary weakness and economic slowdown. Even in good agricultural years, Tunisia remains heavily reliant on imports. Estimates cited in the debates indicate that a good harvest can reach between 16 and 20 million quintals, while national consumption is around 37 million quintals. The structural deficit therefore remains massive.

This dependency does not concern only wheat intended for human consumption. A growing share of imports also goes to animal feed. Changing dietary habits and the gradual industrialization of livestock farming have increased the need for imported cereals. But this dynamic is now running up against the growing impoverishment of the middle and working classes. Several analyses point out that the rising cost of living is pushing many households to reduce their consumption of animal proteins in favor of subsidized cereal products. Economic fragility thus mechanically reinforces cereal dependency. Bread becomes simultaneously a social shock absorber and a source of budgetary vulnerability.

One of the main lessons of the current crisis is that food sovereignty can no longer be thought of solely from the standpoint of cereal production volumes.

Modern agriculture now depends on an extremely complex globalized industrial chain, of which fertilizers are probably the most strategic element. Urea, the main nitrogen fertilizer used worldwide, depends directly on natural gas. Around 46% of its composition is tied to nitrogen derived from gas. This means that a rise in gas prices or a disruption of international energy flows is immediately reflected in agricultural costs.

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is a perfect illustration of this systemic vulnerability. A very large share of global urea exports transits through this strategic zone. Military tensions immediately raised concerns about world fertilizer availability. The consequences extend far beyond the Middle East. When fertilizers become more expensive or less available, farmers reduce their applications. This reduction then affects global agricultural yields and ultimately feeds through to international food prices. Several countries are already beginning to feel these indirect effects. India, for example, has had to reduce part of its fertilizer production due to energy and gas tensions, which could affect upcoming harvests and exert additional pressure on world markets.

Tunisia finds itself particularly exposed to this situation. Its agriculture is heavily dependent on imported inputs, even though this dependence often remains invisible in public debate. The country does produce phosphate, but this does not mean it is sovereign over the entire fertilizer chain. The production of phosphate fertilizers requires, in particular, sulfur, which is largely imported and often linked to vulnerable shipping routes. Even a country with strategic mineral resources can therefore remain deeply dependent on global chains to transform and add value to them.

This reality reveals the limits of the classic discourse on food self-sufficiency. Food sovereignty can no longer be defined solely by the capacity to produce wheat locally. It must integrate the entire agricultural chain: fertilizers, energy, transport, storage, logistics and access to foreign currency. In the Tunisian case, this question becomes all the more sensitive given that phosphate production has fallen sharply since 2010, simultaneously reducing national industrial capacity and export revenues. Tunisia thus finds itself in a paradoxical situation: it possesses certain strategic resources but remains dependent on global chains to add value to them.

The current crisis also highlights the structural weaknesses of Tunisian agriculture. The central question is not only that of imports but also of productivity.

North African cereal yields remain relatively low compared to international standards. The figures cited place Tunisian yields at around 14 quintals per hectare, compared with about 17 in Morocco and 10 in Algeria, while Egypt achieves significantly higher results thanks to heavily irrigated agriculture. These levels remain insufficient to significantly reduce Tunisia's cereal dependence.

But the problem extends far beyond productivity alone. Tunisian agriculture now faces growing climate pressure. Water scarcity, recurrent droughts and the irregularity of rainfall weaken agricultural cycles and make yields much more volatile. Climate change is gradually transforming food security into a strategic issue. Good harvest years are becoming less predictable while irrigation needs are rising even as water resources diminish.

This evolution further reinforces dependence on imports. Tunisia is gradually entering a zone of systemic vulnerability where climate, energy, fertilizers and public finances become interdependent. A poor harvest leads to more imports; more imports require more foreign currency; yet currencies themselves depend on tourism, exports and macroeconomic stability. Food security thus becomes directly linked to monetary and budgetary issues.

This articulation is fundamental because it shows that the Tunisian agricultural crisis can no longer be treated as a simple sectoral issue. It now points to the very structure of the national economic model and to the state's ability to manage critical dependencies in a global environment that has become much more unstable.

The Tunisian food subsidy system is one of the historic pillars of the national social contract.

The compensation fund, created during the Second World War, initially aimed to stabilize prices in a context of shortages and uncertainty. Over time, this mechanism became a central element of Tunisia's economic and social regulation. It allows the prices of bread, flour, pasta or fuel to be kept artificially low. For several decades, this system helped preserve a certain social stability.

But this model has gradually become extremely costly. The rise in international energy and commodity prices has considerably increased budgetary pressure. The Tunisian state must now simultaneously absorb energy and food subsidies in a context of weak growth and high debt. The problem is aggravated by the very structure of the system: subsidies largely benefit the entire population, including affluent households, while their abrupt removal could provoke a social explosion.

This contradiction places the state in a permanent political impasse. Past experiences show that subsidy reforms always constitute moments of strong tension. Bread occupies a highly symbolic dimension in Tunisia. It represents both a basic food product and a historical marker of the social contract. Any price reform therefore directly affects political legitimacy.

Faced with this difficulty, adjustment often takes indirect forms. The state sometimes avoids head-on price hikes but allows shortages, supply disruptions or quality degradation to appear. This silent adjustment mechanism is becoming increasingly frequent. The current crisis could accelerate this dynamic. A lasting rise in world prices for wheat, oil and fertilizers would exert considerable pressure on Tunisia's public finances and make maintaining the current system increasingly difficult.

The Tunisian food crisis ultimately reveals a much deeper crisis: that of the strategic state.

For several decades, Tunisian agricultural policies have oscillated between public intervention, openness to world markets and social management of prices. But this architecture today appears increasingly incoherent. Tunisia imports cereals massively while maintaining administered prices. It produces phosphate but depends on imports for certain strategic inputs. It seeks to preserve social peace while facing growing budgetary constraints.

This permanent contradiction weakens the state's planning capacities. The problem extends far beyond agriculture. It touches on the country's overall ability to manage its strategic dependencies in an unstable geopolitical environment. The food question is now inseparable from the energy question. Fertilizers depend on gas. Transport depends on oil. Imports depend on currencies. Currencies themselves depend on exports, tourism and macroeconomic stability.

This interdependence transforms food security into a national security issue. Tunisia can no longer treat agriculture, energy, foreign trade and social policy separately. The war in the Middle East shows precisely why. A regional geopolitical shock can now simultaneously produce a rise in energy prices, disruptions to fertilizers, food inflation and budgetary pressure. This cumulative dynamic is particularly dangerous for economies heavily dependent on imports.

In the face of this situation, the Tunisian debate often remains prisoner of a simplistic opposition between dependence and self-sufficiency.

Yet complete cereal self-sufficiency appears structurally difficult under current climatic and hydric conditions. The real strategic question lies elsewhere: it consists of building food resilience.

This approach implies shifting the debate. Food sovereignty does not mean producing locally everything that is consumed. It means sustainably securing supply capacities, reducing critical dependencies and strengthening national capacities for crisis management. This strategy presupposes several profound transformations: better management of strategic stocks, diversification of suppliers and trade routes, and much broader reflection on critical agricultural inputs.

Tunisia will likely have to develop regional and industrial strategies for fertilizers, sulfur or certain logistics chains. Maghreb cooperation could theoretically play a role in this perspective, even though regional political blockages make this option difficult in the short term. The energy question is also becoming central. Part of Tunisia's agricultural vulnerability comes directly from its dependence on imported hydrocarbons. The energy transition could therefore also become an agricultural strategy.

The development of solar on farms, improved energy efficiency or the production of green ammonia could gradually reduce certain structural dependencies. But these transformations require time, investment and a true industrial vision. Finally, the social question remains fundamental. Food security cannot be thought of solely in terms of volumes. It also depends on purchasing power. A population that no longer has access to proteins and falls back on subsidized cereal products reveals structural impoverishment.

The Tunisian food crisis is therefore not only an agricultural crisis. It is also a social, budgetary and political crisis.

The war in the Middle East has revealed a fundamental reality: Tunisian food security now depends as much on global geopolitics as on national harvests.

Wheat, fertilizers, gas, oil, maritime transport and currencies today form a deeply interdependent system.

Within this system, Tunisia appears particularly vulnerable.

But this vulnerability can also become a strategic starting point.

It forces us to move beyond sectoral approaches.

Agriculture can no longer be thought of independently from energy, industry, foreign trade and public finances.

The central question then becomes that of rebuilding a strategic state capable of articulating food security, energy transition, industrial policy and social justice.

Tunisia's real challenge is probably not to achieve impossible self-sufficiency.

It is to build a national capacity for resilience in a world where geopolitical, climatic and energy shocks are becoming permanent.

In other words, it is no longer simply a matter of producing more.

It is a matter of surviving strategically in an increasingly unstable global economy.