As of 21 October 2021, global tomato processing forecasts are estimated at 38708 thousand tons, of which 18774 thousand tons are from WPTC (World Processing Tomato Council) member countries.
For the fourth consecutive year, Tunisia kept its tenth place in the world production of tomatoes, processing about 938 thousand tons of tomatoes.
The following is the production of processed tomatoes in AMITOM member countries:( WPTC 2021).
In Tunisia, the agricultural area allocated to tomato cultivation during this season has been estimated at around 17,000 hectares, compared to 16,500 hectares in 2020.
The following chart is a geographical distribution of the areas:
Annual tomato production has been estimated at 1.1 million tons against 1.2 million tons in 2020, representing a yield of 65 tons/ha.
At the level of processing, the 2021 campaign ended with the processing of 926,000 tons of fresh tomatoes, allowing the production of 138,000 tons of tomato concentrate, compared to 145,000 tons in 2020.
Continuing the scientific and applied research work initiated in 2016, GICA’s agronomy team set up 13 variety trials in 2020 and 8 trials in 2021.
The objectives of these trials were to study the real productive and industrial potential of the different varieties of seasonal tomatoes marketed on the market and to characterize them quantitatively and qualitatively, as well as to elaborate a database of the different productivity and quality criteria of the tomato varieties.
In collaboration with the various processing units and nurseries, these trials covered the main production regions, namely the Capbon, Kairouan, Sidi Bouzid and Gafsa regions as well as the Béja and Jendouba regions.
