In Southern Tunisia, This Artist-Led Farm Is Using Olive Oil to Create Change

All that began to shift in 1995, when the government monopoly finally ended, and private companies were allowed to export. But it wasn’t until 2006, when Tunisia launched its first national strategy to promote Tunisian olive oil, that things really started to change. Bottled exports were just 500 metric tons that year; today, they’re closer to 40,000. And now, Tunisia is the second-largest producer of olive oil in the world, with output estimated at 500,000 metric tons this year alone (Spain is number one, coming in at more than one million metric tons). On top of that, Tunisia is also the biggest producer of organic olive oil worldwide, with 227,000 hectares (about 561,000 acres) certified organic by the USDA. And because the country doesn’t allow olive oil imports, everything produced there—including oils from other independent brands like KAÏA and Olivko—is single-origin by definition, too.

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

Even so, global recognition hasn’t quite caught up with the progress on the ground. “We still need people to know that Tunisia is a producer of olive oil. That’s the situation,” Dhouha said. If you ask eL Seed, that situation may also be rooted in something far deeper: a Eurocentric worldview. “The truth is, we’re also up against cultural imperialism,” he told me on a walk through the olive groves one morning. “People still want their products to be from Europe, not Africa.” Tacapae, then, is his attempt to shift that perception and to elevate Tunisia’s olive heritage. He’s a stickler for the rules of the harvest process—always bring your olives to the mill to press them the same day you pick them; never store oil in a transparent bottle because its worst enemy is sunlight—as he knows the stakes are high. The quality of the product shapes its greater image, after all.

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

“This is a bigger project than just olive oil,” he reflected. “It’s about showing that there are other ways. It’s about showing that everybody is important in this world.” And it’s not just the rest of the world he’s trying to convince. “Tacapae is more of a direct message to the community here than anyone else,” he continued. “The more I go through this, the more I realize my target isn’t people from the outside—it’s people from here. From Gabès. From the south of Tunisia. All the people who sometimes forget their own value. We tend to content ourselves, to accept the bare minimum…but the first thing I say to people is, that’s not enough. Good is not enough. Always remember your value.”

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

On the day of the main party event, a harvest lunch for 60 people, I awoke to sunny skies and a cheerful WhatsApp from eL Seed’s brother saying he’d pick me and our photographer Clémence up at around 3 p.m. (eL Seed may have started Tacapae, but I quickly learned it’s very much a family affair.) By the time we arrived, the earthy farm we’d spent the past few days hanging out on had transformed into a festive explosion of color. Guests were decked out in their finest—deep green velvet, soft linens, gold necklaces that caught the late-afternoon sun—and eL Seed and his team had scattered jewel-toned pillows and mats beneath the olive trees so people could lounge between courses. Chef Valentin Amine Raffali, a French-Moroccan chef eL Seed had hired for the occasion, cooked lunch in a traditional earth oven, and we ate a lavish feast on the grass with plates balanced on our laps. Allouche fel kolla (slow-cooked lamb stew), rigouta (smoked ricotta over olive branches), omek houria (puréed carrots with garlic and harissa), and more, including plenty of fresh olive oil. Everyone I talked to seemed to be involved in some sort of interesting creative project, though in a true testament to a good party, that was hardly the focus. Who wants to have the “what do you do” conversation when there is good food to eat and olive trees to lie under and toddlers to chase around grassy, golden fields?

Photo: Clémence Polès

Photo: Clémence Polès

But it was the final evening of the trip, a few days after the buzz of the main event had faded, that stayed with me most. eL Seed, Clémence, and I decided to go for one last golden hour walk through the olive groves to reflect on the time we’d just spent together. As the sun was beginning to dip, we took a seat under one of the older olive trees, and for a while we didn’t speak. Just stared out at the land. When I finally asked eL Seed what he was thinking about, he said he was remembering a line from the French writer Jean Cocteau: There is no such thing as love, only proof of love.

“Talking is good,” he said, “but I’d rather somebody show me that they love me. And that’s what I try to do with my land. People always say, ‘I love my land,’ and I say fine—but what do you do for it? It’s important to do things for the place that’s important to you. I’m so proud of being from here, and that’s why I do all of this. The harvest party, the oil, everything. It’s all for the place I love.”