A national training on calibration and validation of Aquacrop in Tunisia

Tunisia - March 2021 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a training course on the model of the water productivity of AquaCrop crops for the benefit of twenty engineers and professionals from the National Institute of Field Crops (INGC) and various technical departments of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries in Tunisia.

This training is part of the partnership established between FAO and INGC through which the institute will implement activities aimed at improving the state of knowledge and measurements and monitoring of wheat water productivity.

Developed by the FAO, the Aquacrop model allows the realization of growth simulations of herbaceous crops. It scenarios the response of crop yield to water. The model can also assess the effect of the environment and agricultural practices on agricultural production.

At the end of the training, participants were able to calibrate the model with their own field data. They have participated in a hands-on exercise based on field data collected from a sample of cereal farmers in the governorates of Jendouba and Kairouan, located, respectively, in northern and central Tunisia.

The results of this exercise will be the subject of a report, which will be presented shortly to all stakeholders in the cereal sector, during a national workshop on water productivity in cereals in Tunisia. This strategic sector contributes to the social and economic balance in Tunisia. It represents 30% of the total agricultural land in the country, ie 1.2 million ha, including 65,000 ha of irrigated land.

This activity is implemented within the framework of FAO’s regional project “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for water efficiency/ productivity and water sustainability in the NENA countries” under the Water Scarcity Initiative, This project is funded by the Swedish International Cooperation and Development Agency.