In the framework of the ENPARD South Support Programme, the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural development and Fishery, with the support of the CIHEAM-IAMM, identified several priority issues that the agricultural sector in Algeria has to face.

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And so the challenges of improving the marketing of agricultural products, highlighting product quality and access to domestic and international markets for producers have emerged requiring further reflection with all actors involved.

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Algeria has a two-fold objective, on one hand; the aim is to enhance the Algerian agricultural production and know-how at the national and international level. Algeria possesses, indeed, many assets notably a wealthy natural environment. On the other hand, its objective is to improve the balance of trade by increasing agricultural exports, which was already initiated by the MADRP.

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In this context, the MADRP, with the support of CIHEAM-IAMM, decided to organise the first national workshop entitled « Marketing of agricultural products, organisation of actors and market access ». The objectives were to initiate a wide reflection on this issue based on an assessment report of the sector’s situation, an analysis of the measures and tools available to stakeholders as well as the difficulties they are facing in order to submit later on solid proposals.

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Thus, the discussions revolved around two axes of reflection:

1. • The health and phytosanitary quality of products, standardisation, traceability and certification ;

2. • Organisation of actors for agriculture product marketing (especially at the international level).

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The MADRP is aware of the need to involve all the stakeholders in the discussions and in order to strengthen the coherence and synergy of Algerian works related to marketing of agricultural products, the MADRP wished to implicate many actors from the private, non-governmental and public sectors in the national workshop. Therefore, among the 72 participants, many private actors involved in agricultural markets attended the workshop (exporters, farmers, food industries…) as well as health and phytosanitary quality control laboratories and some certification organisms. Many officials from different Ministries (Ministries of Agriculture and Fisheries, Industry, Trade and Health) were also invited to fuel the exchanges on cross-disciplinary issues related to food trade.

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The workshop proved to be a real success and the debates enabled the establishment of many proposals and axes to improve the support system for marketing of agricultural products. Among the proposed recommendations, those listed below were largely approved by the participants:

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• • Adoption of a coherent multi-sectoral strategy at the national level with clear objectives: to identify the tools and support measures, to explore growth markets and the way to access it and to also clarify the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders ;

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• • Synchronisation of regulations and reduction of administrative procedures and formalities in the aim of establishing one single institution at the service of farmers. To achieve this goal, it was proposed that a service dedicated to export would be created at the MADRP ;

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• • Reduction of the imbalance of information flow between actors, to ameliorate their knowledge concerning the procedure to follow for market access, the expectations on national and international level as well as the benefits in terms of tax legislation for export ;

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• • Improving support for companies to develop their activities on the international level by strengthening the tools available and their abilities to explore and diagnose international markets (potential, expectations and strategic positioning to adopt).

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At the end of the national workshop, a report of recommendations shared by all the stakeholders who contributed to the event was presented to the MADRP by the think tank in order to fuel its strategic reflection regarding its marketing of agricultural products support system.

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To continue the reflections and discussions concerning the issues facing the Algerian agriculture, a second national workshop was held on 26 April 2016 entitled « Agricultural sectors, integrated poles and territorial clusters ». An article summing up this event will soon be available on the ENPARD South website.

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