State of play of the dairy sector in Algeria: between objectives and dependencies: an overview.

Abstract The public authorities have invested considerable financial resources over recent decades in restructuring the dairy milk sector in Algeria with an objective of reducing the country's dependency on milk imports. This work aims to draw up an inventory of the status of the dairy sector in Algeria on the basis of data collected from published literature while identifying the reasons that slowed down the development of national production. The imports of milks and derivatives estimated at US$1.40 billion in 2018 are ranked in second place after cereals and account for 16.37% of the total import bill for food products (US$8.57 billion). This worrying situation is all the more constraining in a context of economic crisis induced by the downfall of the country's incomes, due to an almost exclusive dependence on hydrocarbon exports, whose prices have decreased significantly in the last few years. At present, the State's measures undertaken to promote the various stakeholders of the dairy sector to increase milk production unfortunately remain limited in scope. Further actions will have to be implemented to get this strategic sector back on course.