Mediterranean Crossing

Tunisian farmer Afif Elphil was in the south of the country scouting a new crop of watermelons one morning when a call arrived from the Port of Tunis. El Phil, the young chief of the Jinene Agro farming business, figured the customs agent was calling to report a problem with his latest load of peaches, bound for Marseilles in a refrigerated truck aboard a cargo ship. But the paperwork and produce were all in order. The problem, the customs officer explained, was that an electronic scanner had detected something moving inside — the farm's two night watchmen, stowed away among the crates, trying to sneak into France.

Trade across the Mediterranean Sea has gone on from time immemorial, well before the Phoenicians grew rich on the Greeks' passion for purple dye. But El Phil's anecdote sums up the current dilemma faced by this ancient cradle of commerce. Today an enormous economic gap separates the northern and southern shores of the Med. Too often it is bridged by the illicit and perilous transit of desperate human beings, instead of by the sanctioned flow of commerce.

In early July, French President Nicolas Sarkozy will welcome political leaders from across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to a summit to debate his ambitious agenda for bolstering trade in the region, protecting the environment and cracking down on terrorism and the trafficking of contraband goods, drugs and illegal immigrants. His much touted plan for a union for the Mediterranean looks stillborn. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has worried that it could undermine the European Union; Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has deemed it a colonialist affront to Maghrebi pride. Yet at its core, Sarkozy's plan has an insight that is as simple to state as it is difficult to realize: that the best way to stem the tide of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean is to create wealth on its southern shores.

That's hardly news to El Phil, as he stands between two long rows of peach trees on his Grombalia farm, 22 miles (35 km) south of Tunis. Just four years after starting to export to Europe, Jinene Agro now gains half its profits from foreign sales. Tunisia's sunny latitude allows El Phil to ship fresh peaches and plums during the weeks from mid-March to mid-April when there's space on supermarket shelves throughout Europe. "We harvest after the end of production in Chile and South Africa, and before Europe begins," he says. "We exploit that gap." Such built-in potential in the agriculture sector, until now largely untapped, could fuel the kind of economic development so badly needed across the Maghreb region that spans North Africa, where unemployment remains stuck near 20%.

But the success of El Phil's enterprise should not obscure how much remains to be done. Pierre Beckouche, a senior researcher with IPEMED, a Paris-based think tank on Mediterranean issues, says that regional economic advantages have been well exploited elsewhere over the past decade: by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in North America and the ASEAN free-trade area in Southeast Asia. But the E.U.'s 1995 "Barcelona Process," which was meant to encourage deeper ties across the Mediterranean, has largely been a Brussels-driven dud. "What's missing is a network of firms, of experts, of political leaders committed to regional cooperation," says Beckouche, whose institute has advised Sarkozy.

The Fruits of Labor
No sector illustrates the squandered opportunities of Med trade better than agriculture. Though plagued by poor management in North Africa and market-distorting subsidies in Europe, farming is ripe with possibilities. If they are not taken advantage of, however, the consequences are plain: farmworkers in North Africa will head for Europe. Last year, as many as 1 million are believed to have left the poorer shores of the Mediterranean. (The figure includes not just those from the Maghreb, but also migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia, drawn to people-trafficking routes that transit North Africa.) In some parts of the E.U., such migrants fill up to 90% of jobs in fields and packing plants, which are generally shunned by the Continent's native-born.

Jinene Agro, for its part, is keeping folks on the farm. El Phil has lost no workers to European dreams since the night watchmen's attempted escape. The two dozen laborers he retains only earn about $11 a day, but they can make a living for their families, knowing prospects are improving. That is because El Phil is focused on adopting the higher standards that foreign markets expect. He now promotes not only the ability to harvest before European competitors, but also "traceability." His peaches, plums and nectarines are all labeled with the location of his grove, and cool-packed to reach the French coast no more than three to four days after they're picked. In addition to the crop from El Phil's 124 acres (50 ha) in Grombalia, the company plays middleman for watermelons, nuts and dates purchased from the hotter and dryer south of Tunisia. As it's just a 36-hour voyage by ship from Tunis to Marseilles, El Phil mainly targets the French market; the home page on his office computer is a weather map of France. "If it's raining there, I know not to try to sell watermelons," he says with a smile. "We're not a big operation, but we've learned to master quality."

The Tunisian government, like many of its neighbors, recognizes the potential in such trade. Already the exporter of 30% of the world's dates, many destined for markets in Europe's Muslim neighborhoods, Tunisia wants to make a name for its country's nectarines, oranges, wines and even olive oil — which is currently shipped out in bulk, mixed and then bottled under Italian and Spanish labels. Mohamed Ali Jendoubi, a top agriculture ministry official, says that, with the right kind of marketing, people will seek out Tunisian products. "With our climate, our fruit has the taste of the sun," he says. "You know what we say: 'Men do the work, but nature is the talent.'"