Mediterranean Crossing

GROWTH POTENTIAL: Tunisian farmworkers harvest peaches for export to European markets

Photograph for TIME by Eric Bouvet / VII

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But Tunisia's agricultural exports, worth $1.2 billion, still lag behind its $1.4 billion in farm imports. North Africa's natural gifts are too often wasted, says Gunther Feiler of the Tunis office of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "There is big potential in fruits and other high-value crops," Feiler says of the entire Maghreb area. "But there are too many small farms that don't have the resources to gain access to foreign markets." Policy changes are needed on both sides of the Mediterranean. In North Africa, governments have kept prices low, fearing the political consequences of expensive food. And in Europe, the E.U.'s entrenched system of farm subsidies lets farmers sell their products on the domestic market at lower prices than foreign competitors. Despite his free-trade rhetoric, Sarkozy is not expected to curtail these handouts, which benefit French farmers most of all.

Sarkozy's plan is, in any event, hardly racing along. The French proposal was originally meant to encompass only the 19 countries along the Mediterranean rim. But Merkel led a push to include all E.U. nations, a move that many fear could dilute what was already something grandly ambitious. And for all Sarkozy's fine words, most of the hard work of sorting out North Africa's problems will have to be done by those who live there.

A lack of cooperation within the region has been a key impediment to more investment in North Africa, notes Carlo Altomonte, a professor of international economic policy at Milan's Bocconi University. "One of the main reasons of the trading success in Eastern Europe is that they integrated among themselves," he says. "If you invest in Tunisia, you get stuck in Tunisia. The North Africans are painfully slow to trust each other."

At Home or Abroad
So long as that dearth of investment in North Africa continues, workers will leave. Outside the southern Italian city of Foggia, the first of the summer's tomatoes could recently be seen on the vine. The local fields are worked almost exclusively by migrants. Hosseim (not his real name), 22, an illegal immigrant from Morocco, came to Europe two years ago, crammed with 65 others in a rickety fishing boat. His family owns 12 acres (5 ha) in the town of El Kelaa, 47 miles (75 km) northeast of Marrakech, but raises only a few cows and goats, and some zucchini. The oldest of five, Hosseim was encouraged by his parents to emigrate. He figured that by now he'd be wiring money back home and putting aside something for his future. But with work sporadic, and his daily wage of $47 sucked up by food and rent, he hasn't even managed to pay back the $1,560 his uncle lent him to pay the traffickers.

Still, Hosseim's younger brother wants to follow him to Italy. "He says: 'I can't stay here; there's nothing for me here.' I tell him not to come, but he thinks I'm not telling the truth about my life here," says Hosseim as he sits in a small apartment he shares with four other Moroccans. "All young people think there's money and cars waiting for you. But when you come, you see it's different."

Some prosper. One of Hosseim's roommates got his working papers, does regular shifts at a marble factory nearby, and is putting away as much as $470 a month. But Italians say they're fed up with the illegals who harvest their beloved pomodori. Silvio Berlusconi's new government is pushing through a bill that would mandate jail time for immigrants caught without documents, and the E.U. has passed new guidelines that allow member states to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months and impose a re-entry ban of up to five years.

Few North African migrant workers believe such crackdowns will stop their brothers from coming. What might work better can be seen on a farm 100 miles (160 km) south of Tunis. Here the vision of a Mediterranean Union is in full flower. David Jacob is the technical manager for Agroland Tunisie, a 370-acre (150 ha) joint venture with Chanabel, a French farming conglomerate based near Lyons. Jacob is showing top officials from Tunis the new field of baby nectarine trees that were planted in January. He brought the latest techniques for hydration and pruning from France, and knows what pleases the European eye and palate. Moving over to a grove of mature trees, he plucks a shiny and symmetrical nectarine off a branch, and holds it up: "You see, it almost looks like it's plastic — perfect like an apple." A bite reveals a sugary sweetness that must indeed be the taste of the sun.

Projects like this are part of the solution for Europe's immigration crisis, says Abdelhakim Khaldi, head of Tunisia's public land agency: "We have land, we have water, we have human resources. And we're open to all possibilities. But there must be open access to European markets for these products. If there is, I can sign my name to a document that there will be no problem of emigrants. People here just need a job." It will take more than a presidential photo op in Paris to find them one. But it may be a start.