Dates with destiny: Tunisian oasis fights for land

Summer has ended and the autumn rains have come, but dates still hang heavy from nearly 185 hectares of palm trees in the oasis of Jemna, a small village in the southern region of Kebili, Tunisia.

Normally, the dates should have already been harvested, but regular farming activities have been brought to a halt since the government issued a statement early last month threatening to block the call for tenders, which was set for September 18.

"When we announced the sale of this year's crops in the paper, Mabrouk Kourchid [Secretary of State at the Ministry of State Property and Land Affairs] decided to bring us to justice… he claimed that we were illegally operating state-owned land," said Taher Tahri, president of the Association for the Protection of Jemna's Oases, which currently manages the land.

The association took over the oasis following a sit-in led by the residents of Jemna in order to reclaim the land from private operators. This was in January 2011.

The sit-in was the culmination of widespread frustration prompted by decades of land use that had little to no trickle-down effect for the local community. The date farm was first exploited by French colonists, then by the state-owned STIL (Tunisian Society for Dairy Industries), and finally, by two private operators renting the land from 2002 to 2011.

"It's a question of corruption," says Tahri, referring to the two men who operated the farmland for nearly a decade.

"One of [the operators] was the brother of a captain from the Ministry of the Interior… they were able to rent the land for an incredibly low price - 80 dinars ($34) per hectare [per year]."

A locally driven transformation

The association, whose founding members work on a voluntary basis and align themselves with the social and solidarity-based economy, has been a major success story.

Within one year of operation, they managed to double the date harvest, and they now employ 140 year-round agricultural workers, a considerable feat in a region faced with one of the highest levels of unemployment (26 percent) in the country.

	Profits from date sales have brought an ambulance to the community [Emma Djilali]

"In five years, the association has done what the state couldn't do in 60 years," says Hamed Ennaji, a 36-year-old agricultural worker who has been working on the oasis for the past two years.

Ennaji, like many of the residents of Jemna, is proud of what the association has contributed to the community: the construction of classrooms in two elementary schools, a fitness room at the local high school, a covered market for the sale of dates, and an ambulance which operates throughout the region, to mention a few.

But the residents' dependence on the association also reveals the fragility of this small, southern community and its long-standing sense of isolation.

First forgotten, now a threat

When asked whether he feels the Tunisian government should be investing in Jemna's infrastructure and development, rather than the association, Ennaji shakes his head.

"We have always been forgotten. The state will never invest anything here."

Somewhat ironically, the association's economic prowess and efforts to occupy the would-be role of the state seem to have captured the government's attention, at least when it comes the issue of land ownership. Furthermore, the government's decision to block the association's activity suggests that Jemna's alternative economic model may even be perceived as a threat.

"The government doesn't want Jemna to take possession of its land because it is scared that other villages in the south will take us as an example and will decide to do the same, to take back their land," explains Ennaji.

"The [government] doesn't want us to succeed in order to prevent others from doing as we did."

Legal status in limbo

As it stands, the association can no longer continue business as usual. On September 15, a tribunal ruled in favour of the state's ownership claim.

At the start of the negotiations that followed, Mabrouk Korchid made a three-point proposition: that the state would sell the dates, that the sum collected would be in the name of the state, and, that the association would set up a commercial entity in order to rent the property from the state for the next 30 years.

From there, explains Tahri, things evolved a slightly more positive direction.

"We spoke with Samir Bettaieb, the minister of agriculture. He had spoken with Korchid and he said that the association could sell the dates in the presence of the state. [Bettaieb said that] we must then calculate the sum that we need for the next agricultural year - the workers' salaries, supplies for the farm, etc - the rest of the money would go to the state."

But many of the residents and farm employees are not interested in a compromise. 

Taher Ben Yahia is a 46-year-old worker who had worked for both the private operators and the state-owned company (STIL) before the creation of the association in 2011. For him, the answer is simple:

"It's either we work here, we make a living off of this land, and the state lets us be, or the state comes and takes it by force, and it will be another revolution. We are not letting this land go. We have families to feed. We live for this land."

Salam Amami, another farm worker, echoes Yahia's response. "We will not give up our land. Even if [the state] tries to take the land by force, we will burn the land."

	Salam Amami says they will not give up the land [Emma Djilali]

Across the community of Jemna, everyone - employees, volunteer members of the association and residents or, as Tahri likes to call them, "sympathisers" - seems to share the same opinion: they do not want to give up the land.

That being said, the association is under pressure - the date harvest cannot wait much longer and pragmatism may have to overtake staunch resistance.

An urgent need for a solution

Zied, the chief administrator at the oasis, is in favour of finding a compromise, so long as it does not jeopardise the association's ability to fulfill its social goal. 

"For me, the most important thing is that the profits from the oasis go to [the community of] Jemna… I am not against renting the land from the state."

Zied has concerns, however, about the prospect of replacing the association with a commercial entity.

"Enterprises only seek out profits. They don't seek to develop the community. The association is part of the social economy. We are not seeking profits, we are seeking to fight unemployment and develop the community."

Nevertheless, Zied and Tahri both agree that they would be willing to consider other possibilities, such as setting up a social enterprise - which is still a relatively new concept to Tunisia. The problem remains that this, too, requires time.

"In Tunisia, we are pioneers... We don't know what we are supposed to do. We can certainly follow other examples that have taken place elsewhere the world, but the government is blocking us," says Tahri.

"They don't give us enough time to search, to seek out solutions. They are fighting us, day and night. It's for this reason that we need help, especially, from activists from Tunisia and from abroad."

 
Postscript: This past Sunday, the Association for the Protection of Jemna's Oases opted to auction this year's date crops for the sum of 1.7 million Tunisian dinars ($760,000).

They did so without state approval, and thus the transaction is considered illegal in the eyes of the Ministry of State Property and Land Affairs, which described it as a "null act with public property".

While a number of politicians expressed their support for the association and even attended the auction on Sunday, an official agreement between the state and association has yet to be reached.

Emma Djilali is a freelance writer based in Tunisia. Follow her on Twitter: @emma_djilali