North African climate change threatens farming, political stability

Tunisian olive farmer Ali Fileli looked out over his parched fields and crushed a lump of dry, dusty earth in his hand.

“I can’t do anything with my land because of the lack of water,” he said.

Fileli is just one of many farmers who have been left high and dry by increasingly long and intense droughts across North Africa.

“When I started farming with my father, there was always rain, or we’d dig a well and there would be water,” said the 54-year-old, who farms around 22 hectares (54 acres) of land near the northern city of Kairouan.

“But these last 10 years there has always been a lack of water. Every year the water table drops three to four metres (10-13 feet).”

Fileli showed AFP his sprawling orchard of olive trees. With the olive harvest approaching, some bore small, shrivelled fruits, but the rest were dead.

He said