Agriculture Adaptation Strategies of Tunisian Oasis Households to Climate Change

Climate change should have impacts on Tunisian arid regions oasis households are likely to bear the most significant negative impacts, the case of the oasis of "Metouia" in the governorate of "Gabes". This research is based on an econometric analysis through cross-sectional probit models involving 50 oasis households. The binary probit models showed that certain factors contribute significantly to the adaptation strategies identified, such as: the age of the agricultural household head, agriculture as a main activity, the agricultural production system adopted the mode of ownership of agricultural land, extension for farmers. All actions aimed at improving the resilience of Tunisian oasis agricultural households to climate change focus mainly on the strategies adopted by farmers in terms of water management, the technical choices and the production systems adopted combined with the experience and local know-how

TRANSMISSION BETWEEN RETAIL AND PRODUCER PRICES FOR MAIN VEGETABLE CROPS IN TUNISIA

Recently in Tunisia, vegetables prices increased rapidly, especially green pepper, tomato and potato. The sharp rise in prices led to the deterioration of consumer’s purchasing power and the depletion of their food basket. Since price is the mechanism linking the different stages of the production chain, information on price transmission and causality can provide guidance on the actions to be taken by the actors. The results of the price transmission show a long-term relationship between retail prices and producer prices. The important role played by intermediaries influences the symmetric transmission mode. In the case of tomatoes, the transmission is asymmetric and the causality has gone from retail to producer prices, whereas for potatoes the transmission is symmetrical and the causality of production prices towards the retail price. For green pepper the transmission is also symmetrical and the causality is from retail price to the production price. The transmission depends on the causality but it also depends on the supply of the market and if the product is storable or not. Actions to be undertaken by the actors must concentrate on the control and transparency of commercial transactions along the food chain. Prices regulation must be placed on the wholesale level and not on the level of the producers in order to clear the margin of intermediaries and avoid the shortage of certain products in markets

JEDIER 46-53:Marques

Abstrac

Bio-economic modelling to assess the impact of water pricing policies at the farm level in the Oum Zessar watershed, southern Tunisia

For integrated assessment at farm level, the Farm System SIMulator model (FSSIM) was used. FSSIM is a bio-economic model developed for the European context, and was adapted and tested for Tunisian conditions to assess, ex-ante, impacts of water pricing policies at the farm level to the year 2015. The results show that all farm types are strongly dependent on the water pricing policy. Farmers that have private irrigation systems and pay for pumping mainly, are more sensitive to the progressive increase of irrigation water costs compared to farms that obtain water from public irrigation systems, who pay for the amount of water received. A sensitivity analysis showed that increasing the water price with more than 17% is not advisable to local decision makers, because the net income continued to decline, while the water consumption remained stable with further increases. Hence, there is no further gain in terms of water saving. Overall, intensive agricultural systems with private irrigation systems seem more vulnerable and unsustainable and therefore the extension of public irrigation systems and semi-intensive agriculture is recommendable to improve the sustainability of agriculture in this arid zone

Resilience of irrigated agricultural systems to climate change challenges in central-eastern region of Tunisia

Tunisia is among the Mediterranean countries that are threatened by climate change. The agricultural sector is the economic sector that will be most affected by this phenomenon. Thinking of adequate adaptation policies to increase the resilience of certain agricultural production systems is a fundamental condition for ensuring the sustainability of agricultural activity, especially irrigated agriculture. To assess the degree of resilience of irrigated agricultural production systems in the centraleastern region of Tunisia, case of Kalâa Kebira, a bio-economic model was applied to analyze the impact of two scenarios. The first represents only the variation of climate change while in the second one, we add an integrated policy based on the pricing of irrigation water and the subsidy of the purchase cost of seasonal potato seeds. The results of the simulation confirmed the negative economic and environmental impacts of climate change on small scale intensive farms and also large farms in general. The intervention of the public government through an integrated policy is likely to improve the degree of resilience of farms through a compromise between the economic objective (the agricultural income) and the environmental objective (soil salinity) for semi-intensive farms in the study area