Summary

The Tunisian grain market is estimated to witness a CAGR of 3.5% during the forecast period, 2020-2025. Tunisia has the highest per capita consumption of wheat in the North African region, which is close to 258 kg per year. Further demand for wheat is created by visitors every year from Algeria and Libya (over two million) who have high requirements of wheat-based food products. The total Tunisian wheat consumption is around 3 million metric ton, every year. A strategy was formulated to reach 2.7 million metric ton of cereal production over the next three years, in Tunisia.

Cereals are important crops in Tunisia and occupy about 1.2-1.5 million ha, of which about 13% is planted with bread wheat, 45% with durum wheat, and 42% in barley. Total cereal production in 2016-2017 reached about 1.5 million metric ton, including 1.1 million metric ton of wheat and 400,000 metric ton of barley. The Ministry of Agriculture reported that the area planted for wheat and barley during 2017-2018 to be 724,000 ha and 534,000 ha, respectively, with increased production of 1.2 million metric ton and 500,000 metric ton, respectively.

Key Market Trends

Increased Domestic Production

Tunisia's agricultural sector is highly labor-intensive and uses very low levels of fertilizers and pesticides. Most of the farms are not highly mechanized, and plowing a field takes five times longer than in the United States. Most of the land is split into very small farms, making production much less efficient, with 80% of the farms being smaller than 20 hectares, and only 3% is larger than 50 hectares. Wheat, barley, and sorghum are the majorly produced grains in the Tunisian region. In 2018, 1500,000 metric ton of wheat, 762,377 ton of coarse grains, and 700,000 ton of barley was domestically produced in the region, which was a 35.83%, 42.97%, and 46.44% increase, respectively, in production when compared to 2017.

Rising Barley Imports for Beer Production

France, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Russia, Romania, Argentina, Finland, and Estonia are some of the major regions from where Tunisia imports barley. Beer continues to dominate the volume sales of alcoholic drinks in Tunisia, benefiting from a very high number of consumers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 72% of Tunisians who consume alcoholic drinks prefer beer, making the locally produced global beers dominate the competitive landscape. The local manufacture of international beer brands is led by SONOBRA, which ranked second in terms of volume, in 2018. Hence, there is always a significant demand for barley, the main ingredient in the production of beer, which implies a growth factor for barley import in the region.

Additional Benefits:

The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
3 months of analyst support

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