Algiers, Tunis and Rabat are out of milk stocks. In all three countries, the authorities are trying to find solutions to this shortage. Without real success.
Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia… The three North African countries are facing future shortages of milk. For different reasons: drop in national milk production for some, import problems for others. In Morocco, last Thursday, the Minister Delegate in charge of Relations with Parliament and also government spokesperson, Mustapha Baitas, confirmed the kingdom's problems in this sector, while remaining rather evasive. “The decline in milk production is due, among other things, to seasonal factors,” simply indicated the Minister Delegate, answering a question on the shortage of milk which is beginning to be felt in supermarket shelves.
In fact, Morocco seems to be hard hit by the war between Russia and Ukraine, like the rest of the continent. Among the factors that explain the decline in local milk production: the soaring prices of animal feed and cereals - mainly corn and soybeans. But also the climatic conditions. Morocco has experienced a major drought, which forced breeders to close their farms.
In Tunisia, the situation seems to be more catastrophic. At the beginning of September last, the president of the National Farmers' Union, Midani Dhaoui, affirmed that Tunisia had only fifteen days of milk stocks left. A crisis that affects many basic necessities. But with 1,5 million liters consumed every day, milk, when it is absent from the shelves, symbolizes the crisis that the country is going through.
According to the trade unionist, several reasons explain the drop in milk reserves: “The whole sector is affected, he explained at the microphone of Mosaïque FM on September 2. Indeed, the cattle herd has been reduced by 35%, either through direct sales or via smuggling networks. Either a consequence of the inability of breeders to bear the exorbitant costs of feeding the herds”. As in Morocco, the inflation of animal feed – whose prices have increased by nearly 40% – is slowly killing local agriculture. However, the milk tariffs imposed by the State prevent breeders from making a profit, assures the boss of the agricultural union. Worse: each liter of milk produced costs more than it yields to farmers.
But as in the Cherifian kingdom, it is not just the conflict in Ukraine that is the problem. Questioned by Le Monde, a farmer assures that “the sector is dying. The problem of the shortage of milk is seasonal, we brood over the same grievances every year without it improving”. In question, the state subsidies, deemed insufficient, and the price ceilings set in the country, which oblige breeders to work at a loss. And the promise, last week, of Fadhila Rebhi, the Tunisian Minister of Commerce, to find a lasting solution should not reassure farmers too much.
Finally, Algeria also sees the shortage of milk pointing the tip of its nose, but the reason for this crisis is significantly different from Morocco and Tunisia, Algiers importing milk powder. Producer stocks are plummeting. Africa Intelligence says Tchin-Lait, which operates the Candia brand in Algeria, has halted production in Algiers, Bejaïa and Sétif due to a powder shortage. Same thing for Soummam and Hodna, who delivered their last stocks of milk a few days ago. Supermarkets are therefore no longer restocked.