State subsidies and food poverty for mountain peasants in Kabylia (Algeria).

Abstract

In the village of Tala n Tazart where we conducted surveys between 1990-2008 as part of a doctoral research, we noted that the food subsidies that the Algerian state granted to populations from the 1970s were absorbed by cities and struggled to reach these populations for lack of adequate distribution structures. The 1986 oil crisis, which caused food prices to explode on world prices, lifted the veil on food poverty, an issue that remained taboo until the 1990s in Algeria. In Tala n Tazart, the decline of garden cultivation, the pricing of water, the change in food methods during the 1980s and the surge in food prices reducing the role of the State in terms of food subsidies reveal the state of impoverishment and the marginalization of mountain farmers.

 Key words: Tala n Tazart (Kabylia), mountain peasants, food subsidies of the state, food donations (zakat and ucur), food security.