STORY NAME: Oued el khayrat (Green Sands) COPYRIGHT HOLDER: Bilal BRAHMIA, Open Media HUB COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Bilal BRAHMIA, Open Media HUB USAGE TERMS: EDITOR’S NOTES: None SOURCE: Dzair News Channel , http://dzairnewstv.com/ Open Media Hub – http://www.openmediahub.com “This production was supported by OPEN Media Hub with funds provided by the European Union” LANGUAGE: Arabic , English DURATION: 00:26:10 JOURNALIST: Bilal Brahmia EMAIL: [email protected] SLUGLINE: Agricultural challenges in the Algerian Oued Province HEADLINE: The documentary covers the successful agricultural story of Oued farmers who managed to defeat both the harsh nature and lack of financial support in order to bring the best of Oued desert as a role model Algerian province as producer of fresh vegetables and fruits. DATELINE: Ourmess, Oued Souf, Algeria – 01/06/2018 SCRIPT: 00:20:00-Al Assad Mdjidi : Farmer from Ourmess town -I have inherited this valley from my forefathers. It was inherited From my grandparents to my father then from my father to me. However back in 1976-1978 my father used to work on this valley by just using a traditional wicker basket that he lifts on his back. You see those green spaces! yes, these green spaces. Look these palms are the first that I have planted in this valley, they were six. -It is well known for its dates -True, the quality of the dates is well-known here, everyone praises the dates of Ourmess. However, unfortunately, nowadays investing in the field of agriculture is not that much fruitful, thus the production of dates is decreasing. For instance, one palm used to produce 1 ton of dates, but now it just produces 60 to 50 kilos. -Last year, we have even exported dates abroad because of its good quality. -Dates are good because they can be preserved for a long period of time while its quality remains the same. 00:01:52-Farhat Ater :Farmer -Electricity is not available and people buy it from their own incomes for the sake of agriculture which is reaching deep desert areas. It is lots of suffrage. 1 -Despite all of this, people are still willing to cultivate the land and work in the field of agriculture. They won’t stop, I assure you. Water is available, we just need electricity. -Look! this is the electricity producer, can you just see for how long these cables are being stretched, they became unseen under the sands, they are stretched like this for about 2 kilometers. 00:02:46-Mohamed Hadid : Farmer from town of Ourmess You can see what this land produces, watermelon, hot pepper and this melon as you can see! If we just receive enough support from the relevant authorities, people would be more encouraged to work harder in this field. We got tired with planting watermelon this year, imagine a whole hectare produced only a small quantity. 00:03:54-Toufik Brahmi: Farmer from Kemmar municipality -In 2018, we have tried to farm tomatoes in two seasons. As you can see this one was farmed in this summer season and we have great production. It has the same quality as the one being farmed in winter season. It has been two months since we started collecting tomatoes. -By the way, most of these tomatoes go to the North of the country. We have farmers who come from all the conrners of the country including Constantine, Chelghoum, Annaba, khanchla and Biskra to buy our products, then they sell them in all the markets. El Oued’s tomatoes became very famous! not only tomatoes, but potatoes, cauliflower, peanuts, and melon everywhere. -As you can see, it is true it is summer but look at the quality of these fresh tomatoes. Before we used to receive summer tomatoes from Annaba or from the north, but with these experiments, thanks God, it is very successful. 00:05:48-Bekkar Ghamam Hamed: Head of agricultural Chamber in El Oued -El Oued is relied on in the production of potatoes. El Oued’s nature, climate and agriculture help the farming of different fruits and vegetables. It has at the same time the advantage of producing what do we call as early-farming climate, for example cultivating tomatoes in non-greenhouses meaning in the fresh air and soil. -We know that in this season there will be rain by the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, so it is a bit risky. Therefore, farmers cultivate autumn tomatoes and like this we help in covering up the needs of Algerian people. -Approximately 2500 hectares of lands are being farmed in fresh conditions like air and soil not inside greenhouses. It is an initiative taken by farmers, first of all to secure their financial needs and at the same time this would be beneficial to Northern provinces who consume healthily from the goods of El Oued. In January and February, it snows all over the world but fortunately, we have a special geography and climate that help us consume fresh products from the fields. El Magren is considered as one of the biggest producers of tomatoes. As here in El Oued we have lots of towns where each one is specialized in the production of a special agricultural product. 00:07:14 -Nasser hurry up, collect the onions, it is very hot , it is summer -Khalifa! you can fill in these bags ! you can double the bags if it is necessary ! 00:07:33-Khalifa Debar: Farmer 2 -The potatoes that you can see now is very natural and fresh it does not contain any sort of chemical products. Except water and cows’ fertilizer. -I deal with some foreign exporters and some local factories here in the province of El Oued which are specialized in the conversion of food industry. -A cooperation contract was signed between these parties says that we have to provide them by fresh goods and it is all going on well so far. -We are shaped as cooperation and we have signed a number of contracts with some companies in order to sell them our fresh products. As a company we will take care of cultivating process and post-production. To produce better quality, we are looking forward to exporting our products! 00:08:34-Khalifa Cheniba Atiya: Head of Workers’ -These are grains, we need to take care of them… here are these bags you can fill them in. -Slimane ! you can fill in these boxes. -It is not easy, not easy at all to find the right worker whom you can trust and work skillfully. -We need them to separate potatoes according to its sizes and get rid of bad goods so that the consumer receives only the good quality of our fresh products. It is really a very tiring job. The simple farmer if really tired with this job because he needs to start work at 2 a.m. -When he works he just earns 1000 AD per-day, no insurance! -It depends, sometimes he gets 1000 AD, sometimes 800 AD, sometimes 500 AD and other times 1500 AD 00:09:17-Abdelghani Chenniba : Daily worker It depends, sometimes we have easy work to do and sometimes it is really hard! Sometimes we fill in trucks and sometimes we work on grains. Sometimes, if the worker does not lift up the box of vegetables in the right way, he may end up having back injuries and aches. We don’t have insurance, all what we work in the month could be spent on one medical prescription. 00:09:45-Khalifa Debar: Farmer -We have what we call as the Head of workers who is responsible on their smooth running of work, he brings some if we need so. It is true that it is tiring and we really want to bring around new helping equipments like machines to work more at ease and have more production. -Unfortunately bringing new equipments and machines did not work here especially in El Oued. This machine could not collect potatoes, instead it cut it into pieces. What works here is the hard work of workers and farmers. - You can see this locally produced machine, it is working better than the one we brought from Turkey. 00:10:30-Abdelkarim Medkhel: Rebbah’s town welder I can tell you Why this machine does not cut the potatoes into pieces because we have changed this piece from plastic which was produced by Turkey to an iron one. We have 3 added other modifications and innovations and thanks God it is really working well with our type of soil. The farmers are satisfied so far. - They used to work with a drip irrigation system, it was really tiring, however since they brought this machine back in 2000 , farmers are more at ease. -We work on all the machines here but we bring the raw materials from abroad. -The pivot irrigation system is composed out of 4 pieces , each piece contains 12 meters and another piece that contains 2 meters. -And here we stick the pivot which is about 50 meters long. And this piece allows water to flow through and this piece holds water. This is the sprinkler, and here is another one. These sprinklers spray water here and there. -When it comes to the pivot irrigation system , we can’t have a better irrigation system than this. It is quicker and does not take lots of time. 00:11:58-Boubaker Lech’hab- Farmer in Ourmess municipality The farmer of El Oued became a professional farmer who is not only skilled in the field of potatoes production but in other fresh products including peanuts, barely, wheat and other products….