Economic determinants of technical changes in olive production in Tunisia: the case of the Sfax region.

Olive production techniques in Tunisia, which are traditional and not very innovative, are holding back the modernisation of the olive sector. A cost-benefit analysis of the proposed innovations shows that they are multi-innovative and profitable. However, the technical feasibility and social acceptance of these innovations are hampered by institutional, economic and political problems, as confirmed by an analysis of the data collected by the Institut de l’Olivier over the last few seasons, from 1994 to 1996. By modelling two of the six types of farm identified by the data analysis, we were able to verify the initial hypotheses and simulate different organisational and economic scenarios capable of bringing innovation to the olive production process. These scenarios are based on a different availability of male labour and a new pricing policy. The first scenario shows that innovation in the olive-growing sector is inversely proportional to absenteeism: the less the producer is present on the farm, the more traditional the production process. The 2nd scenario shows that rewarding the effort put into olive production through a stable pricing policy encourages producers to innovate in their production system and promotes economic and social stability in the olive-growing sector.