Algeria’s agricultural policy has allowed it to optimize productivity and sustainability while tackling resource scarcity, according to a recent WEF report (pdf). Despite only 17% of the country’s land being arable, the Algerian National Agricultural and Rural Development Program has boosted food production, increased water-use efficiency, decreased crop emissions, and lowered rates of malnourishment.

Food production boost: The country improved its food security by designing policies to encourage private sector investment and reduce food imports by removing foreign ownership restrictions and lifting bans on agricultural equipment imports, increasing food production by 114% per capita between 2002 and 2018, the report finds. That far outpaces the 9% median growth in food production across Africa and the 5% median in emerging and diversifying countries during the same time period. Increased food production also helped bring down undernourishment rates in the country to below 3% of the population in 2019 — the lowest rate in Africa — from 8% in 2001.

Clean energy sources: A USD 10.3 mn private public partnership greenhouse complex in the city of Touggourt — a collaboration between Algeria’s National Office of Irrigation and Drainage and Spain’s Alcantara Systems — is powered by renewable geothermal energy. “The greenhouses are expected to increase yields significantly, while keeping water use, energy costs, and emissions low,” the report notes.

Tackling water waste and targeting crop cycles and yields: The report finds that Algeria achieved the highest agricultural water-use efficiency in Africa and decreased its crop emissions intensity by 51% between 2002 and 2018. The country’s Agriculture Ministry used satellites and drones to identify irrigation needs and introduced water table-fed irrigation systems in the El Oued desert, installing rotating sprinkler systems to draw on water tables to irrigate fruits and vegetables. It has also introduced traditional ghouts — oases created by planting palms as windbreaks directly above the water table and creating depressions in the dunes ten meters deep to grow crops alongside them.

Incentives, land grants, and more private sector engagement: A 2010 program incentivized farmers to invest in short-cycle crops with low water requirements and switch to high-yielding varieties of staple crops through land grants and fertilizer subsidies. Algeria also removed restrictions that previously capped foreign stakes in any investment project at 49% and lifted bans on the import of agricultural equipment to encourage private sector investment in the sector.

High self-sufficiency and labor force participation: A 2015 report by Oxford Business Group found that domestic production increased self-sufficiency of staples and increased employment in the sector to represent a fifth of the labor force in 2013.