Over the past two years, Algeria has experienced a food crisis affecting the market for bland oils. On one hand, the local production of these oils has become insufficient to meet the needs of Algerian citizens, and on the other hand, state expenditures on importing this material have continued to rise.

This is why the Ministry of Commerce has turned towards local production of vegetable oil resources by encouraging farmers to find solutions, among them, the famous Rapeseed oil as a better solution to confront this crisis. However, despite this, Algeria found itself once again importing Rapeseed seeds as a second choice instead of importing the oil itself, thus facing the same problem, the high costs of importation! 

So, what would be the perfect solution that would allow us to provide vegetable oils (specifically RAPESEED oil) without importing either the oil itself or its seeds? 

 It is by asking this question that we have found a solution to this problem. Our project consists of the production and distribution of RAPESEED seeds, called a seed producer, which will allow us to provide the basic material for farmers who can then extract the oils through cold pressing. This seed producer will be the first of its kind as it does not yet exist in all of Africa, but it is also the first seed producer treated with modern and developed techniques involving biotechnology and bioengineering to ensure the production of very high-quality RAPESEED seeds. 

As we have just mentioned, the techniques for growing our seed producer are mainly based on biotechnology, and yes, biotechnology exists in Algeria! And more precisely at the National School of Biotechnology "ENSB" in Constantine. This school is known for the quality of its theoretical but especially practical training; all professors teach their students everything they will need to become future biotechnology engineers during their five-year university curriculum. s.

Not to mention the support and efforts of scientific clubs that do their best to represent their specialty through several innovative projects in this field. Among these is the Biotechnology Engineers Network Club "BEN Club." Since 2019, the members of our club have been working on raising awareness of the importance of our specialty and the degree it offers. The majority of our events and training sessions focus on innovation and entrepreneurship because we believe that biotechnology, considered as a new specialty, has become essential for finding important solutions in the field of scientific research or the world of startups, among others.

This is the case with our project, which is a real investment through which we have targeted the basics of oil extraction, and especially because we ensure the distribution of good seeds to the farmer, which will give him perfect seeds full of exceptional oils to be extracted in the end. This project will not only allow us to have a rich oil, beneficial for health, but also a multi-usable oil thanks to its ordinary composition that can be exploited in cosmetology as well as for animal nutrition. 

As you have understood, the Rapeseed seed producer could be a real solution to our food and commercial oil crisis and would also allow us to reduce the importation bill for seeds. 

Written by: CHAIBI Lina Anfal - Biotechnology student