The heatwave which has hit Algeria since mid-June has caused farmers heavy losses, particularly in seasonal fruit crops. Grape, melon, peach and some citrus fruit, such as lemon, are the hardest hit by the high temperatures.
Farmers are not the only victims of the hot weather in Algeria. Poultry breeders have suffered losses no less than those recorded by farmers, after tens of thousands of poultry died, according to a report by Al Araby.
The losses recorded by farmers in Algeria have reopened the debate about insurance culture which is largely absent in Algerian agriculture. Farmers, who are used to government intervention to compensate for the losses they suffer each time there is a disaster, demanded the government to intervene to salvage what can be saved amidst the heatwave. They also pressed the government to provide irrigation as such equipment is expensive.
The number of farmers who subscribe to farm insurance does not exceed 75,000 in a market where some 900,000 farmers are active, said Mr Mohamed Alioui, secretary-general of the General Federation of Algerian Farmers.
Moreover, the farmers view offerings by insurers as unattractive. Insurance rates are high. For example, premiums for multi-hazard insurance for production by type of crop are between DZD6,000 ($50.5) and DZD8,000 per hectare per year, an amount not all farmers can afford.
Farmers fear another problem that could increase their losses – a series of fires, as happened last year when thousands of hectares of cultivated land were destroyed by fire.
Algeria is not the only country experiencing a heatwave. Across the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to California, Japan and North Africa, an exceptional heatwave has been sweeping for several weeks.
“2018 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, with new temperature records in many countries,” said Ms Elena Manaenkova, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
On 5 July, according to a weather station in Ouargla in the Sahara Desert in Algeria, the temperature soared to 51.3 C, which was probably “the highest ever recorded in Algeria by reliable instruments”, the WMO said. M
DZD1 = $0.08