This article examines Tunisia’s olive oil export sector as an agrarian question shaped by postcolonial trade dependency and ecologically unequal exchange within the Euro-Mediterranean integration project. It analyzes how Tunisia’s incorporation into the EU agricultural trade regime—through the 1995 EU–Tunisia Association Agreement and the ongoing Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (ALECA) negotiations—has restructured the sector in ways that reproduce both agrarian subordination and ecological extraction. Grounded in a critical political economy framework that combines dependency theory, ecologically unequal exchange, and contemporary analyses of imperialism and neocolonialism, the article situates Tunisia’s export-oriented olive oil model within the longue durée of colonial organization, post-independence state-led development, and neoliberal reform. Methodologically, it draws on qualitative analysis of trade agreements, policy documents, grey literature, descriptive trade statistics, field observations, and nine interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025. The study shows that Tunisia exports over 85–90 percent of its olive oil in bulk, while European firms capture most of the added value through blending, bottling, certification, and branding. Tariff-rate quotas, regulatory harmonization, and subsidy regimes sustain this asymmetric transfer of value. Within Tunisia, rapid vertical integration—driven by a small group of exporters—has concentrated market power, shifted economic risks onto smallholders, and intensified precarious, gendered forms of harvest labor. Export-oriented intensification has also exacerbated ecological pressures, notably pollution and water depletion and, thereby externalizing environmental costs onto rural communities. The article concludes by advancing ecological delinking and food sovereignty as strategic pathways to reclaim national policy space, regenerate rural ecologies, and strengthen Tunisia’s sovereignty over its agricultural future.
Bouazzi et al. (Wed,) studied this question.