Mediterranean Agriculture: Features and recent trends  

Overview

The Mediterranean sea covers about 2.5 million km². It is bordered by just under 20 countries and territories [Foot-note 1] and about 3500 islands of various sizes in Europe (EU), Africa (AF) and Asia (AS).

The countries of the Mediterranean area have much in common, starting with history. The Ottoman empire englobed all of it at the end of the 17th century, except Italy, the Iberian peninsula and Morocco.  At the end of the second century, all of the region was part of the Roman empire, to the extent that the Romans used to call the Mediterranean “Mare nostrum” (“Our sea”). Today, the phrase is often used in the ambit of exchanges and cooperation among Mediterranean nations (Wikipedia 2018a) to stress the commonalities among them. This is also the spirit that led to the foundation of the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies 1962 (CIHEAM 2018), a Mediterranean intergovernmental organisation devoted to the sustainable development of agriculture and fisheries, food and nutrition security and rural and coastal areas. There are several other Mediterranean institutions, such as the Union for the Mediterranean (Wikipedia 2018b) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (Wikipedia 2018c)

The region is home to about 440 million people (282 million live in rural areas) and the population grew 11% from the early 21st century [Foot-note-2]  (16% in rural areas).  The current average rate of urbanization (64%) hides a large disparity with the lowest values in Bosnia-Herzegovina (36%) followed by a group of countries close to 50% (Albania, Egypt, Slovenia, Syria) and three countries close to 90% or above (Israel, Lebanon and Malta).

Population age structure varies significantly among countries. The percentage of people younger than 15 years is 14% in Italy and Portugal, but 32% and 37% in Egypt and Syria, respectively.  People above 65 years, on the other hand, make up about 20% of the population in Italy and Portugal, but only 4 to 5% in Egypt and Syria. Average values (about 20% in the  below 15 group and 12% in the above 65 age class) do occur occur in Cyprus and Albania. The age structure provides a very straightforward stratification of the Mediterranean countries from “very young” (Syria, Algeria, Tunisia) to “middle-aged” (Lebanon, Israel and most former Yugoslav republics) to “old” (Spain, Croatia, Italy). Refer to Eurostat 2015 for additional information about the Region’s age structure. As confirmed  by net migration numbers available from the website of the World Bank (2018), the different age pyramids is one of the factors explaining ongoing and future population  movements from south and east to north across the Mediterranean.

The share of agriculture in the GDP currently stands at 6.8% (2009-16 average) for the region, a decrease of about 17% since the turn of the century in the region. Agricultural shares of GDP above 10% occur in Albania (22%), Morocco (10%) Egypt (12%) and Algeria (11%). The lowest values (2% and below) are those of Slovenia, Italy, Israel and Malta and the highest is found in Algeria  (+17%). The largest decreases were recorded in two islands with sometimes atypical development patterns (Malta -33%, Cyprus -32%) followed  by a random mix where Lebanon (-24%) tops the list which has Italy, Israel, Tunisia and Morocco at -11%, -9%, -5% and -1%, respectively.

Environment and agriculture

It is environment and landscape, however, that constitute the most typical common features across the Mediterranean areas, in particular the semi-arid climate characterised by winter precipitation and summer dryness. Winters tend to be mild and winter crops can grow almost everywhere. Summer crop cultivation is more problematic.

The region has many hill and mountain areas which lead to rather complex climatic and cropping patterns. To some extent, the mosaic of micro-climates is typical of the Mediterranean area. Some of them are unique; for instance, it is not uncommon that bananas and temperate fruits (such as plums and apples)  grow together in the highlands of southern Morocco. Steep local environmental gradients and ecological patchiness contribute to the region’s diversity and make it relatively safe are in terms of food security.

Figure 5.X1 illustrates the annual water balance over the Mediterranean region. Abundant rainfall occurs mostly over the north-western Iberian peninsula, the Alps and central Italy and the Illyrian coast. The areas of excess of precipitation over evapotranspiration  feed a limited number of permanent rivers, such as the Ebro in Spain, and the Po in northern Italy. Both rivers supply abundant irrigation water (Figure 5X2). In Illyria and the Balkans, the rivers that are located in the Mediterranean areas are short, so that excess precipitation mostly flows north into the Danube basin and, as such, is of limited use for irrigation along the coast. Finally, in Egypt and Libya, only the very northern fringe qualifies as “Mediterranean”; the Nile derives its water from the east African highlands and climatically belongs into arid areas.

[LEGEND of Figure 5X1:Excess of annual rainfall over annual potential evapotranspiration (mm) over the Mediterranean area. Based on rainfall from Hijmans et al (2005) and PET from Trabucco et al (2009)]

[LEGEND of Figure 5X2:Irrigated areas x over the Mediterranean basin. Values are expressed in % of pixel area. Based on data from GMIA 2016.]

Paradoxically, irrigation plays a limited role in the region, with about 13 million Ha of irrigated land, which is about  6.0% of the total agricultural land (216 million Ha). The percentage of irrigated land remained stable since the first years of the century, i.e. both total agricultural land and irrigated land dropped by about he same percentage (2.2% and 2.3%, respectively).  With the exception of Egypt, where virtually all land is irrigated, the percentages of irrigated land are close to 20% or above in Albania (17.4%), Italy (18.3%),  Cyprus and Malta (21.3% and 34%). The average mentioned above (6%) essentially results from most values being close to 10% (Turkey, 13.5%) with very low irrigation percentages is some countries, e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is likely that, in the near future, irrigation will become more common in the Region. As repeatedly mentioned in the previous CropWatch bulletins [Foot-note-3] , the Mediterranean area appears to be undergoing a relative aridification that affects the whole Basin (Figure 5X3). This may be a general “weakness” of Mediterranean climates as long-term drought is observed as well in other areas with Mediterranean climates, such as California, parts of Southern Africa and Australia.

[LEGEND of Figure 5X3: A near-empty water reservoir in Cyprus in 2016. Source: Guardian 2016.]

According to data available in FAOSTAT, the region undergoes a marked warming: 2001-8 winter temperature (DJF) exceeded the 1951-80 reference values by 0.8°C.  For 2009-16, the change is 1.1°C in Winter and a rather significant 1.7°C in summer (JJA).  In winter, the largest changes occur in the north-east and east (Slovenia, Syria and Turkey)  while summer heat-waves seem to have become the norm (e.g. +2.0°C and more in Bosnia, Croatia).  

The Mediterranean crops “package”

The Mediterranean area and the near east are among the main centres of origins of cultivated crops (Daminia et al 1998). About 85 crops are of “Mediterranean” and “near-eastern” origin and  are often treated as a category of plants that tend to grow in the same areas (Patterson and Josling 2005); they constitute the “Mediterranean plant package” and are at the basis of the “Mediterranean diet[Foot-note-4]”, with cereals, typical fruits and herbs.  Plants that originated in the Mediterranean and Near-East include wheat, rye, oats, and barley, as well as many  forage plants (including legumes) but mostly vegetables and fruits, not to mention other typical products such as cheese. In fact, Patterson and Josling consider the following among the typical “Mediterranean” plants of major economic importance: olives, tree nuts (e.g. pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts) , grapes and wine, tomatoes and citrus. Olives trees and oil, the most typical markers of the Mediterranean package are often used to define the region.

Table 1 illustrates some recent changes that have occurred in the production and trade in the region. For many commodities, the percent change in export values by far exceeds the change in production, indicating the increased focus of the region on exports and the high value of Mediterranean products.  

[LEGEND of Table 1: percent change from the early 21st century of some production and export statistics in the Mediterranean region.]

The production of some traditional and popular  crops in the Mediterranean region, such as barley (mostly grown as winter crop in north Africa and the Middle East; Algeria is the major producer with 1.4 million tons) and sugar crops have been decreasing. In the case of sugar, it is probably the EC Common Agricultural Policy (CAP [Foot-note-5]) and stagnating prices during the first decade of the century that have reduced the appeal of growing sugar crops. In fact, after a peak in 2012, sugar prices have been low again. For soybean, for instance, prices varied between 400 US$ and 1000 US$ per ton between 2001 and 2008, but reached 1800 US$ per ton in 2013, resulting in high average  values between 2009 and 2016 (Trading economics website). A large fraction of the listed trade actually regards exports to the European Union by southern Mediterranean countries.   

In the case of barley, an important source of straw used as cattle feed, the crop has often been replaced by winter wheat while other sources of feed (e.g. soybeans) are used more frequently. The production of coarse grains, which include mostly maize (and some barley) in the Region has undergone a modest increase of 2.3%. The region has four significant producers of maize (million tonnes), two in the north (Italy 8.1, Spain 4.2), one in the east (Turkey 5.2) and only one in the south (Egypt 7.7)

The typical Mediterranean commodities from citrus to tomatoes are doing well, and are frequently seen as a natural way to reduce production risk through increased diversification. It is stressed that the listed products are just some of the very typical ones. There are dozens more that all occupy niche markets and remain in high demand, including for instance herbs and spices (e.g. peppers and saffron) , and products such as dates (+124.9% export value) or figs (+11.6%) and many other dried fruits. Dried fruits have relatively long shell-lives using traditional technology. They can be produced  at low cost thanks to the dry climate in unsophisticated environments and provide small-scale farmers with regular and dependable income. Even tomatoes are traditionally dried in many areas.  

Exports of fresh fruits are also increasing, although they are more difficult to handle, due to cost of storage and food safety risks. This results in situations where the qualitatively different micro-productions continue to thrive while the production of the basic sources of calories (especially wheat) cannot keep pace with growing demand in much of the Near East and North Africa, basically because of shortage of land (Zdruli and Lamaddalena, 2014). The countries seriously affected by the land gap include mainly Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia (Mediterra 2008). As a result, many Mediterranean countries are now net importers of food (Hallam and Balbi 2012).  In the words of Marty et al (2016) “the  demand  for  agricultural  products  increased six fold from 1961 to 2011 in the Middle-east and north-Africa region, as a  result of   the   population’s   growth   combined   with   a pronounced nutritional transition, the domestic supply rised only fourfold, partly due to the region’s severely limited land and water resources.

Nevertheless, FAO 2015 report stresses that there is a general shift towards high-value exports in developing countries, as indeed observed in several Mediterranean developing countries, which somehow conterbalances the unfavourable situation of wheat.

The  values in the table hide large disparities among countries, including for instance large decreases in potato production in some countries that used to be part of Yugoslavia (Croatia -53%); others report production increases (Albania +133%, Morocco +21% and Algeria +133%).  Soybean has difficulties establishing itself in the area and sizeable amounts are produced only in Turkey (125 thousand tonnes), Croatia (150 thousand tonnes) and Italy which lead the producers in the region with 720 thousand tonnes.

Olives, tomatoes, grapes and citrus

All countries in the region produce olives, which is a mainstay of agriculture for most of them (Figure 5X4 (A)). By far the largest producer is Spain (6.5 million tonnes), followed by Italy (2.8), Greece (2.3), Turkey (1.6) and Morocco (1.3) . Cultivated areas remain stable or increase everywhere, especially  in former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina +120%, Croatia +40%) and in north-west Africa (Algeria +49%, Morocco +69%).  Production tends to decrease in some areas due the neglect or preference for other crops, but mostly due the combined effect of drought and disease, in particular the bacteria Xylella fastidiosa ( https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%91%89%E7%B7%A3%E7%84%A6%E6%9E%AF%E7%97%85%E8%8F%8C) in Italy where production dropped 21% (Figure 5X4(B)). Yields are down in more than 50% of the Mediterranean countries.

The four major tomato producers with an output in excess of 4 million tonnes include Spain (4.4 million tonnes), Italy (6.6 million tonnes), Egypt (8.5 million tonnes) and Turkey (11.5 million tonnes) are followed by four countries in the range of 1 million tonnes (Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia and Greece). Production is up everywhere, sometimes significantly so (Tunisia +34%, Portugal +39%) while drops occurred in Greece (-27%) and in Italy (-8%).  This refers to industrial tomato production; it is stressed, however, that tomato is an extremely popular crop in the Mediterranean region and that actual output from countless home gardens is not included.  As a result, the total production of 39.0 million tonnes underestimates actual output by at least a factor 2.

[LEGEND of Figure 5X4: (A) Olive trees are very long lived and often become huge and spectacularly beautiful. Two 6000 years old olive trees growing in Bechealeh in northern Lebanon. They are part of a group of 16 nicknamed “the sisters” (Sisters 2018);  (B) An olive tree infected  by  Xylella fastidiosa in southern Italy (New York Times 2018).]

The largest areas cultivated in grapes are those of Spain (just under 1 million Ha), followed by Italy (715 thousand hectares) and Turkey (466 thousand hectares). Remaining countries, with the exception of Portugal (179 thousand hectares) are all below 100 thousand hectares. Grapes are mostly used for wine production and, in the European Union, it is subject to complex policy measures under the Common Agricultural Policy. Like olives and, to some extent tomatoes and citrus, quality of grapes is often a more important factor than the volume. Like olives, grapes are also one of the crops that potentially generate much income per Ha, especially as table grapes. In the Mediterranean context, few crops outperform grapes in terms of income, except some nuts (hazelnuts, pistachios) and some orchard fruits. Yet, the area dropped 12% since the beginning of the century, while production stagnated. Areas increased essentially in countries where wine production is marginal or illegal (Algeria, Egypt, Israel and Bosnia Herzegovina, +6.2 to +18.9%). Three of them (Egypt +13.4%, Bosnia Herzegovina +38.7% and Algeria +78%) are also among the countries where production increased. Others include Morocco (+16.4%), Tunisia (+21.6%) and Albania (+70.4%).

Citrus cultivation (area) recently increased 9.8% in the Region; production increased to 24.3 million tonnes, up 17% compared with the first years of the century.  Areas increased from Turkey to Morocco (between +15% and +35%), and in Croatia.  Three of the four major producers (output larger than 3 million tonnes) increased their output (Spain +6.6%, Egypt +21.7% and Turkey +15.2%) while Italy suffered an 8.3% reduction.

 Organic agriculture

There is a large increase in demand for organic food production. While production may be riskier, the benefits accrued along the food chain are larger than for “chemical” crops. The statistics about organic production have been assembled by FAO for about 15 years but numbers remain imprecise because organic standards themselves, certification and reporting requirements of organic production may vary from country to country. The Mediterranean currently has 10 to 15 million hectares of organic agricultural areas, an increase of 17% between the years 2001-2008 and 2009-2016. The area includes all agricultural land uses, including pastures and concentrates in Greece, Turkey and Italy.

Livestock

The Region currently counts about 190 million sheep and goats (about 75% are sheep) , 45 million of pigs and the same number of large ruminants (cattle and buffaloes). Camels are less than 1 million and farm birds number 1.4 billions. All have increased their numbers between 3% and 4% since 2001, with  chickens and camels growing 16% and 19%, respectively. The largest countries have the largest herds and numbers of bird and pigs, with a clear “leader” for every type of animal:  13 millions for cattle in Turkey, with Spain, Italy and Egypt at 6, 6 and 5 millions, respectively; 270 million chickens in Turkey and 181 millions in Morocco; 27 million pigs in Spain, followed by 9 millions only in Italy; Turkey leads the flock of sheep and goats (34 million heads) followed by Algeria and Morocco (30 million and 24 million, respectively).

The regions uncontested animal production leader is Turkey and recent growth rates of the sector indicate that Turkey will consolidate its position for beef cattle (+22.2% since the turn of the century), sheep and goats (+5.5%).  Chicken numbers underwent a slight decrease (-2.5%) and pigs fell 32.6%.  Countries with significant animal production increases include Algeria (cattle +19.5%), Lebanon and Albania (both up more than 60% for chickens), Albania and Syria for pigs (+160% and +47.8%, respectively). Small ruminants are up 36% in Algeria.     

Fisheries

The section above stressed the relative increase in high value exports in the Mediterranean region. One of those high-value products is fish. Based on the average 2014-16 catch, Morocco and Spain dominate the fishing industry in the Mediterranean area with productions reaching about 1.4 million tonnes and 0.9 million tonnes, respectively.   They are followed by Turkey (278 thousand tonnes), Portugal (166 thousand tonnes) and Italy (130 thousand tonnes) and, decreasing from 95 thousand tonnes to 25 thousand tonnes by Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Croatia, Greece and Libya. Other countries are all below 5 thousand tonnes.

[LEGEND Figure 5X5: relative share of inland fisheries among the three main Mediterranean freshwater fish producers.]

Inland fisheries play a minor part in most Mediterranean countries (Figure 5X5), among others because of limited water availability. The only countries where they play a part include Greece (about 1% of the total catch) and Turkey (about 2%) but mainly Israel (between  2 and 10%), Albania (currently at 6% but at 17% ten years ago) and, naturally, Egypt where a stable contribution of Nile fish reaches about 30% of the total catch.

Summary

Due to semi-arid climate with winter rainfall and other factors, there is a marked homogeneity of farming across the Mediterranean region, which has been affected probably more than other areas by global warming. One commonality is the “Mediterranean package” of crops, especially fruits and vegetables, of which many originated in the area. Typical products include olives, citrus, tomatoes and grapes and constitute the mainstay of smallholder and industrial farmer’s income. They are all high-value crops and the region has successfully developed their exports. Productions are growing as demand changes (e.g. in organic food) but also as the region diversifies exports, for instance table grapes and grape juice instead of wine. Next to the success of typical Mediterranean exports, the region cannot keep pace with the demand for some basic foods:  cereal production grew 4%  while population increased 11% since the beginning of the century. The production of chickens outpaced population growth (+16%) but other meat production increases are comparable to the modest increase in cereals. In terms of livestock, Turkey clearly dominates the Mediterranean production landscape for almost all products. Current trends indicate that the country will maintain or consolidate its position while at the same time the   agricultural import dependence of the Middle-East and North Africa region is likely to continue to rise  through  2050 (Marty et al 2016).

References

Cakmak E H 2013 The European CAP reform viewed from Turkey. CIHEAM Watch Letter 27: 23:26

CIHEAM 2018 http://ciheam.org/en/

CropWatch 2016 Drought in  Morocco, by R. Gommes and R. Balaghi. http://www.cropwatch.com.cn/htm/en/files/eng16-3-6.pdf

Damania A B , J Valkoun, G Willcox, C O Qualset (Eds) 1998 The Origins of Agriculture and Crop Domestication. ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria, xi + 345 pp. https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/bioversity/publications/Web_version/47/begin.htm#Contents

De Castro P, A di Mambro 2013 The European CAP reform and the Mediterranean area. CIHEAM Watch Letter 27: 8-11

Eurostat 2015 Euro-Mediterranean statistics http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/7053328/KS-GR-15-001-EN-N.pdf

FAO 2015 The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets Trade and food security: achieving a better balance between national priorities and the collective good. FAO, Rome. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5090e.pdf

GMIA 2016. Global map of irrigated agriculture, GMIA, version 4.0.1. http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/irrigationmap/index.stm last accessed on 20180430

Guardian 2016 Worst Mediterranean drought in 900 years has human fingerprints all over it https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/mar/18/worst-mediterranean-drought-in-900-years-has-human-fingerprints-all-over-it

Hijmans R, S E Cameron, J L Parra, P G Jones, A Jarvis 2005 Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int. J. Climatol. 25:1965–1978 (WORLDCIM grids available from http://www.worldclim.org/current)

Marty P, B Schmitt, S Manceron, A Forslund, E Marajo-Petitzon, C Le Mouel 2016 Tensions and potential crisis in the MENA region’s food-system in 2050   CIHEAM Watch Letter 36:6 pp. https://www.iamm.ciheam.org/uploads/attachments/280/WL36.pdf

Mediterra 2008 The Future of Agriculture and Food in the Mediterranean countries. CIHEAM http://www.euragri.aau.dk/digitalAssets/158/158286_blanc.pdf

New York Times 2015 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/world/europe/fear-of-ruin-as-disease-takes-hold-of-italys-olive-trees.html

Patterson L A, T E Josling 2005 Mediterranean Agriculture in the Global Marketplace: A Project Comparing Policy Approaches in California and the Southern EU States. European Union Center, University of Pittsburgh and Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research1/patt_jos_med_ag_glob_mkt.pdf

Sisters 2018 https://medium.com/@ibrahimaloua/the-oldest-olive-trees-f75a09e53615

Trabucco A, R J Zomer 2009 Global Aridity Index (Global-Aridity) and Global Potential Evapo-Transpiration (Global-PET) Geospatial Database. CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information. Published online, available from http://www.cgiar-csi.org/data/global-aridity-and-pet-database

Trading Economics website: https://tradingeconomics.com/

Wikipedia 2018a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Nostrum

Wikipedia 2018b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_for_the_Mediterranean

Wikipedia 2018c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Assembly_of_the_Mediterranean

World Bank 2018 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator, for instance https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.NETM

Zdruli P, N Lamaddalena 2014 Mediterranean Region: Too many people, too little land. CIHEAM Watch Letter 28:5 pp.

[Foot-note 1] Albania* (EU), Algeria* (AF), Bosnia and Herzegovina (EU), Croatia (EU), Cyprus (AS), Egypt* (AF and AS), Greece* (EU), Israel (AS), Italy* (EU), Lebanon* (AS), Libya (AF), Malta* (EU), Morocco* (AF), Occupied Palestinian territory (State of Palestine: Gaza Strip and West Bank, AS), Portugal* (EU), Slovenia (EU), Spain* (EU), Syria (AS), Tunisia* (AF) and Turkey* (AS and EU). CIHEAM members (which also include France) are marked by an asterisk. When the text refers to “the Region” (capital R) the list above is intended. The list is conventional. France was omitted because only the south is Mediterranean. Other countries for instance  Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, parts of Iran do have a “Mediterranean tendency” (climatically) although they do not border the sea.

[Foot-note-2] The phrase “percent change from the early 21st century” is used repeatedly in this note. It refers to the percent change from the 2001-2008 average (or total) to the average (or total) of the period from 2009 to the most recent data available, which can vary from 2013 to 2016. Similarly, quoted variables correspond to 2009-onwards sums or averages.

[Foot-note-3] In August 2016, a special feature was devoted to drought in Morocco (CropWatch,  2016).

[Foot-note-4] Not all ingredients typical of the "modern" Mediterranean diet are of Mediterranean origin, e.g. tomatoes.

[Foot-note-5] For a general overview of the CAP’s effect on the Mediterranean countries, refer to Cakmak 2013 and De Castro and di Mambro 2013