UTAP calls for creation of higher council for food sovereignty

Tunis: The Tunisian Union of Agriculture and Fisheries (UTAP) has called for the creation of a high council for food sovereignty, under the aegis of the Presidency of the Republic, to become the strategic framework for taking bold and revolutionary decisions paving the way for the establishment of a competitive national agriculture, capable of coping with climate change in particular. In a press release issued on Monday following a meeting of its Board of Directors on Saturday, UTAP pointed out that 85% of the players in the sector are small farmers, who have not been able to withstand the climatic and economic crises, thus necessitating the urgent adoption of a national strategy to save small farming. The UTAP Executive Committee meeting was dedicated to reviewing and assessing the critical situation and acute crisis in all production systems, which have seriously threatened the sustainability of the agricultural and fisheries sector and pose a direct threat to national food security. In particular, UTAP called for the creation of a national body involving the administration and the profession to protect the national production system and rationalise supply, since "unilateral decisions on supply only serve the interests of certain parties who are dumping on the market in order to hit Tunisian producers hard". Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse