Arabfields, Imed Aissaoui, Oran, Algeria — The agricultural landscape of Algeria is quietly but steadily entering a new acceleration phase, and the city of Oran is positioning itself more assertively than ever as one of its strategic nerve centres. Between January 21 and 24, 2026, the eighth edition of the International Agriculture Exhibition Agri Pro Expo will transform the Mohamed-Benahmed Conference Centre into the country’s most important temporary agricultural marketplace west of Algiers.
This 2026 edition arrives at a particularly meaningful moment. After several years during which the national agricultural ambition was mostly expressed through very large-scale public projects and cereal plans, the authorities, professionals and private investors seem to be shifting their focus toward a much more diversified, technical and market-oriented agriculture. The convergence of several structural factors suggests that the coming five to seven years could mark a genuine turning point for the Algerian agribusiness ecosystem.
The presence of fifty exhibitors, although modest compared with the gigantic Algiers Salon International de l’Agriculture, takes on special significance because of its geographical location and its deliberately professional profile. Unlike mega-events mainly aimed at the general public, Agri Pro Expo has always targeted operators along the entire value chain, from upstream to downstream. The fact that German and Turkish companies have confirmed their participation alongside national operators from practically every region of the country already constitutes a strong signal.
Turkey and Germany are not randomly chosen partners in this context. Turkish companies have become unavoidable players in drip irrigation systems, greenhouse structures, poultry equipment and feed production lines across the entire southern Mediterranean rim. German know-how, meanwhile, remains a worldwide reference in high-precision agricultural machinery, sorting and calibration equipment, as well as in certain segments of animal nutrition and veterinary pharmaceuticals. Their presence in Oran in January 2026 illustrates a double movement: on one side the progressive diversification of the traditional suppliers of the Algerian market, on the other the growing willingness of European industrialists to establish durable footholds south of the Mediterranean rather than remaining simple exporters.
When we examine the different activity sectors represented, a fairly clear image of the priorities for the next decade emerges. Seed production will occupy a central place, which is logical when we remember that Algeria still imports between 65% and 85% of its certified seeds depending on the species and varieties considered. Any significant increase in yields in cereals, market gardening or fodder crops will necessarily require a very substantial improvement in the quality and availability of national or locally adapted seeds. Several medium-sized Algerian companies have been investing for three to four years in seed multiplication units, conditioning centres and varietal selection programmes, frequently in partnership with foreign research institutes. The 2026 exhibition should allow the first concrete maturation of some of these initiatives.
The irrigation segment will also be one of the stars of the event. With the acceleration of major desalination programmes and the gradual commissioning of the twenty-four seawater desalination plants planned by 2030, the availability of non-conventional water will change the equation for many high value-added crops in the western, central and eastern plains. However, desalination water remains expensive. Only very efficient irrigation techniques, mainly localised irrigation and sub-surface drip systems, will make it possible to maintain acceptable profitability. The next three to five years should therefore see a very rapid deployment of these technologies on thousands of hectares, particularly in the wilayas of Oran, Sidi Bel Abbès, Mascara, Relizane, Mostaganem and Chlef.
Mechanisation represents another major pending revolution. While the very large cereal farms of the public domain have long been equipped with powerful imported tractors, the majority of medium and small private farms still work with twenty to forty-year-old machines or very basic equipment. Several converging factors should change this situation quite quickly after 2026: the arrival of new financing mechanisms specially dedicated to agricultural equipment, the gradual drop in interest rates for medium and long-term bank loans, the appearance of local assembly units for certain ranges of machines, and above all the emergence of a real second-hand market supplied by European renewals. The medium-term consequence will be a very marked improvement in the timeliness of operations, a reduction in post-harvest losses and a gradual increase in cultivated areas per agricultural worker.
Animal production sectors, particularly poultry farming and cattle fattening, should also experience very sustained growth between 2026 and 2032. The national flock of laying hens has already crossed the 55 million head mark in 2025, yet consumption needs continue to increase with the growth of the urban middle class and the gradual improvement of cold chain logistics. The feed industry will therefore remain under very strong pressure. Local production of corn and soybean meal remains largely insufficient, which means that the coming years will see both an intensification of national cereal production efforts and continued massive imports of protein crops. Several large feed mill projects currently under construction or in the final study phase should start delivering significant additional capacities from 2027-2028 onwards.
Veterinary medicines and animal health products constitute another strategic area. Algeria has dramatically reduced its dependence on imported veterinary drugs over the past decade, going from nearly 95% coverage by imports in the early 2010s to around 35-40% today. Several units now produce antibiotics, antiparasitics, vaccines and vitamin complexes. The consolidation of this industry will be one of the quiet but decisive subjects of the next few years.
Beyond the technologies and products presented, Agri Pro Expo 2026 should above all serve as an extremely dense networking platform. The current economic environment encourages the conclusion of partnerships more than ever: joint-ventures for seed multiplication, distribution agreements for irrigation equipment, technical-commercial alliances in the field of mechanisation, subcontracting arrangements in feed production, and even shareholding agreements in certain processing units. Many of the strategic alliances that will structure the Algerian agricultural landscape of 2030-2035 will probably have their first handshake or their first memorandum of understanding signed in the aisles of the Mohamed-Benahmed Conference Centre during those four days of January 2026.
In a broader perspective, the repeated holding of this western exhibition also reflects a profound rebalancing of the geography of Algerian agricultural ambition. For a long time, the major decisions, the largest investments and the most visible projects were concentrated around Algiers, the Mitidja, the plains of Sétif and the high plateaux of the east. The western region, although possessing very important agronomic potential, suffered from a certain marginalisation in terms of structuring investments. The regular organisation of a high-level professional event in Oran, combined with the new impetus given to the great western irrigation schemes (Ghriss, Mina, Mactaâ, etc.), the acceleration of port and logistics infrastructures, and the growing interest of private capital in the wilayas of the Oranie and neighbouring regions, tends to prove that the centre of gravity of Algerian agriculture is gradually shifting westward.
The 2026-2032 period should therefore be characterised by simultaneous progress on several fronts: substantial improvement in the availability and quality of seeds, very rapid deployment of modern irrigation on tens of thousands of hectares, profound renewal of the national agricultural machinery fleet, continued growth of industrial poultry and cattle fattening units, strengthening of the local veterinary pharmaceutical industry, and densification of commercial and technical partnerships between Algerian operators and foreign companies.
Seen from this angle, Agri Pro Expo 2026 is much more than a simple trade fair. It constitutes one of the clearest signals that the Algerian agricultural sector, after a long phase of reconstruction and quantitative catch-up, is now preparing to enter a much more sophisticated, much more integrated and much more competitive phase, a phase in which the western region intends to play a role far more important than in the past. The coming years will show whether this ambition can materialise at the expected pace. For the moment, everything indicates that Oran has decided to become one of the main places where the future of Algerian agriculture will be negotiated and built.
