Marie Christine Monnier, who coordinates the World Agriculture Watch (WAW), Kamar Khazal, an expert in Integrated Land Use Planning for Land Degradation Neutrality and SoLaWISE, and Filippo Sarvia, a specialist in land and crop monitoring, traveled to Tunisia for a workshop from April 21st to 26th, 2024. The workshop took place in Tunis at the Ministry of Agriculture as part of the Soil Land and Water digital information system (SoLaWISE) initiative, build in conjunction with the FAO WAPOR 2 project, focused on water productivity.

Tthe methodology, data requirements and results generated for the land suitability maps using the Global Agro-Ecological Zoning methodological approach were presented and discussed with the participants, as well as the results of the farms survey done in the main cereal production zone of Jendouba by applying the WAW methodology.

The findings encompassed suitability maps, crop requirements, and land cover analysis. They also highlighted the essential data and procedures for improving results, and presented the classification of family farms in Jendouba, with an emphasis on socio-economic factors. Looking ahead, the next steps for the projects include finalizing crop type mapping in Jendouba and Kairouan and organizing a virtual training session on the crop type map with a restricted technical group. In addition to that, there will be efforts to build the capacity of local teams to facilitate data collection and analysis of results at farms level. The project will also provide recommendations for the practical use of the combined analysis tools developed during the initiative. 

During a technical meeting done in in the CRDA office of Jendouba, the main findings of the WAW analysis have been discussed with field experts and agriculture advisors, who are serving a population of officially 25000 farms (more probably around 32000), disseminated in 10 CTV. More capacity development of alternative tools and methods for regular agriculture assessments are welcome, particularly if they can facilitate the collection of valuable data in remote areas. The discussion also underlined an urgent need of basic material support to strengthen the extension service. The highly degraded state of cultivated soils (organic matter content generally < 1% ) should push to 1) reinforce the place of agronomy in extension (analysis of the yield elaboration components in situ, fertilization plans based on soils nutrient balance)  and 2) build an adapted strategy of active collaboration with the farmers, in particular to get a clear view of the most efficient agriculture and NR management practices (farmers to farmers exchanges, network of reference farms, monitoring of farmers’ fields to collect data about the dynamics of farming systems).

Tunisia is a pilot country for the SoLaWISe initiative, which aims to improve crop yields sustainably while reducing the impact on soil, land, and water resources in the face of climate change, by providing digital solutions for soil, land, and water management. Taking in consideration also the reality of farming systems in the field.. Besides cereals as a priority group of crops, discussion has been held about a potential replication of WAW methodological approach in Kairouan, representative of the Olive production sector. There is a clear need for improvement of the integration of various sources of information and types of data (SolaWISe, WAPOR, other FAO projects…) to feed and consolidate the national Agriculture Mapping process. Success relies on collaboration between various government departments and existing project structures.