Tunisian Young Women Turn to Farming to Escape Unemployment and Migration

Growing numbers of young women in Tunisia are turning to farming and livestock raising as unemployment rates worsen and rural depopulation to major cities in search of work accelerates. Observers say this trend represents an attempt to find sustainable economic alternatives in rural areas that have long suffered from marginalization and weak investment.

A project in the northwest

From a small farm in northwestern Tunisia, Noura Al-Qatari offers a model for this shift. After years of searching for work in traditional sectors, she chose to return to her family's land and develop a small agricultural project combining livestock raising with seasonal crop farming. Those following the issue say such projects are beginning to attract local encouragement, despite ongoing challenges linked to financing, marketing, and inadequate infrastructure in rural areas.

Official data indicates that youth unemployment rates in Tunisia remain high, pushing growing numbers of rural residents — especially women — to seek alternative income sources within their own regions rather than migrating to cities or abroad.

Ongoing challenges

Despite the individual successes achieved by some of these projects, Tunisia's agricultural sector faces structural difficulties including limited lending directed at young people and women in rural areas, and poor irrigation and transport networks in some regions. Local associations working to support rural women say that providing accessible financing and specialized vocational training could help expand the reach of such initiatives to include larger numbers of young women across the country's various regions.

Specialists believe that supporting this type of initiative not only offers an individual solution to unemployment but may also help curb rural depopulation and the decline of agricultural activity in areas that have historically depended on farming as a primary source of income.