As part of the project “Empowering rural women through the promotion of the Aromatic and Medicinal Plants (PAM) sector” (supported by the German–Tunisian Partnership for Transition programme), the project team and officials from the Médenine Regional Agricultural Development Commission (CRDA) organised the first awareness day with local people and the administrative councils of the local agricultural development groups in the Manzlet Moggar area, on the value of developing aromatic and medicinal plants.
The aims of these activities were to: explain and demonstrate the role of the PAM sector in improving local people’s living conditions; support women who wished to organise; show the role of farmer organisation in preserving these plants and improving their quantity and quality; modernise and professionalise farmers’ practices; explain the importance of organic production in the sector; encourage people to unite in formal groups (mutual agricultural service companies, agricultural development groups) rather than marketing the plants in an unorganised way; clarify the Tunisian regulations for creating such groups; and raise awareness among the relevant audiences (biology, ecology, pharmacy, medicine, sociology, anthropology…) and debate the sector’s challenges with specialists (producers, researchers, jurists, laboratories…).
