ABSTRACT
Tunisia's agricultural history is dominated by colonialism, chiefly French, Before the French Protectorate in 1881 Ottoman rule had crystallised the standard Islamic tenures of mulk, miri and habous, and important expanses, chiefly in the arid south, of collective tribal land. State cooperatives foundered on inefficient management and unattained production levels, leaving the Tunisian fellahin probably worse off than before. The Tunisian fellah became either a landless labourer on the colon estates or a smallholder or sharecropper scratching a living in the eroded hill regions. Most peasants and farm labourers in Tunisia wondered where the benefits of co-operation and independence were. Tunisian agrarian reform, begun soon after independence in 1956, is still continuing. The post-independence government has never considered rural development a single problem to be solved by a once-for-all programme; rather the process has experienced phases as the new leaders sorted out their nation's destiny.
