by Association les Amis de CAPTE

Description

In Tunisia 75% of arable land is desertifying, less than 500m3 of water/year/inhabitant is available, monoculture is a dead end. All these conditions jeopardize the food security of the inhabitants.

Agroforestry is one of the solutions adopted to adapt to climate change.
Agroforestry is the beneficial and sustainable association of trees and people, trees and crops, trees and animals.
Specifically, the carob tree has great potential as an agroforestry crop with lower water consumption, more suitable and compatible with mixed and extensive orchards. Regarding the carob tree, actions to help improve and structure the sustainable carob tree sector in Tunisia in collaboration with Mediterranean research institutes and with the support of Tunisian private companies have been undertaken. In this sense, advocacy activities and dissemination of good agricultural practices have been carried out. Another widespread practice is “Farmers regenerate naturally” (FMNR), a practice to accelerate the regeneration of agroforestry systems and a technique to effectively fight poverty and hunger through land and vegetation restoration. Through the restoration of vegetation, FMNR addresses multiple problems simultaneously, including: land degradation, soil infertility and erosion, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, fuel wood, building timber and fodder shortages and dysfunctional hydrological cycles.

Other complementary practices adopted include:

  • Meteil (a seed combination of legumes, cereals and crucifers that produces higher quality and quantity of fodder with better disease resistance).
  • Research on the improvement of carob rootstocks.
  • Trials of inoculation with mhycorises to improve the micro-organic life of the soil.

The practice of organic mulching.

Results

  • Currently, more than 50 partner farmers in the governorates of Bizerte and Kef have joined the partnership with the association.
  • More than 15,000 trees and shrubs, forestry, agroforestry and fruit trees have been planted
  • More than 30 hectares of meslin have been sown.

Climate smartness*

Agroforestry systems play an important role in African rural landscapes and provision of livelihoods for farmer communities. Integration of trees, crops and animals in farming systems are critical to achieve food and nutritional security of household members. Similarly, Agroforestry is a CSA practice linked directly or indirectly to almost every single category of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, supporting and even cultural), supporting steady and diverse food provision for humans and animals. Using local and climate-adapted species (e.g., carob) facilitates the attainment of synergies mong all system´s components, making efficient use of resources such as soil macro- and micro-nutrients, water and sunlight, and recycling biomass and energy at multiple scales over time. In parallel, FMNR known as a low-cost land restoration technique, among other environmental benefits helps to alleviate fuel/wood shortage, and in terms of socio-economic and technical dimensions, contribute to overcome major agricultural constraints described above. These positive effects are complemented with CSA practices such as Meteil and mycorrhiza inoculation that not only enable a better plant/crop nutritional status, hence greater potential to tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses in their environment. But also contribute to reduce the reliance of external agricultural inputs e.g., fertilizers and pesticides, that complements the carbon sequestration capacity of agroforestry systems with GHG emissions reductions along the manufacturing and application of these external inputs therefore, reducing the carbon emission per unit of produce (emissions intensity).

*This is done in the framework of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach. Climate-smartness in agriculture means understanding impacts of climate change and variability along with the agricultural activity, which includes the planning of what crop to plant, when to plant, what variety to plant and what type of management practices are needed to reduce the impact on the environment (e.g. emissions reduction), maintain or increase productivity (e.g. yields) while increasing resilience and improving livelihoods.