Parched fields push North Africa farmers to the edge

SIDI SALEM, Tunisia－Crushing a lump of dry dusty earth in his hand, Tunisian olive farmer Ali Fileli looked out over his parched fields.

"I can't do anything with my land because of the lack of water," he said.

Fileli is just one of many farmers who have been left high and dry by increasingly long and intense droughts across North Africa.

"When I started farming with my father, there was always rain. Or we'd dig a well and there would be water," said the 54-year-old, who farms around 22 hectares of land near the northern city of Kairouan.

"But there has always been a lack of water these last 10 years. Every year, the water table drops 3 to 4 meters."

Fileli owns a sprawling orchard of olive trees. Over the past decade, around half of his 1,000 olive trees have died due to drought.

The country's water crisis is clearly visible at the Sidi Salem reservoir, which supplies water to almost 3 million Tunisians, including Tunis.

Years of drought have left its water level critically low, an ominous sign for the region's future.

The surface of the lake lies 15 meters below a high-water mark left by floods in 2018.

Engineer Cherif Guesmi said he has seen "terrifying climate change" in the 10 years working at the dam.

"The situation today is really critical," he said. "There's hardly been any rain since a 2018 flood, and we're still using that water today."

As Tunisia sweltered in record temperatures topping 48 C in August, Guesmi said the reservoir lost 200,000 cubic meters per day from evaporation alone.

Despite heavy rain in late October, little fell in the dam's catchment area and the reservoir remains at just 17 percent of capacity, according to official figures.

The problems facing Tunisia are felt across the region. Tunisia's neighbors also face similar challenges.

According to the World Resources Institute, the North African nations of Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are among the 30 most water-stressed countries in the world.

Strains on water table

"The water table across North Africa is dropping due to a combination of overpumping and lack of precipitation," said Aaron Wolf, a geography professor at Oregon State University.

In Algeria, valuable drinking water is regularly used for irrigation and industry. The country was a scene of huge forest fires in August.

And in Morocco, its economy ministry said drought has "strongly affected agricultural production".

Wolf said the implications of drought go far beyond the countryside, causing migration within and across national borders.

"It's in all parties' interests to solve rural water problems," he said.

Hamadi Habaieb, head of water planning at Tunisia's environment ministry, said a combination of less rainfall and a growing population would mean that the country would have "far less" water available per person by 2050.

"Tunisia needs to adapt," he said.

But he insisted that "farming has a future in Tunisia, although we will need to move toward very specific crops … that can deal with a lack of water and to climate change".

For Fileli, any solution may come too late to save his business－and the farming career of his 20-year-old son.

"I'm thinking of giving up, going to the capital, somewhere else," Fileli said. "As long as there's no water, no rain, why stay here? At least my children could find another future."

Agencies via Xinhua