Atlas Platform content siliana living lab

Atlas Platform

Siliana Living Lab, Elkrib

Area	Leader	Farming system
Siliana Governorate, ElKrib Delegation	INAT	Cereal plains under rainfed conditions
Main productions and value chains	Main issues
Cereal production and Olive gardening	Drought, Soil degradation

General information

The Siliana Living Lab was established in the semi-arid cereal plains of El Krib, in Siliana Governorate (northwestern Tunisia), a region facing soil degradation, water scarcity, and fragile rainfed monoculture systems. It aims to foster agroecological transition by providing an inclusive space for diagnosis, knowledge exchange, and collective learning, with farmers at the center of the process. Through participatory workshops, farm visits, and capacity-building activities, stakeholders co-identify challenges, co-design combinations of agroecological practices, and assess experimental results. The LL brings together 30 actors, farmers, researchers, technical experts, extension services, institutional representatives, NGOs, and farmer organizations ensuring a multidisciplinary and inclusive approach.

Representative Farms

Small Scale Farms

Small Scale farm type focuses primarily on cereal production including durum wheat, barley, and oats. In addition, olive cultivation is very common in this type, along with livestock (small ruminants) activities. The average farm size of 5.1 ha, without access to irrigation. Farmers in this farm type typically do not have off-farm employment, and their education level is mainly secondary. This farm type is the most common farm type in the LL.

Medium Scale Farms

Medium scale farm type has similar characteristics to Small Scale farm type, where the main production orientation is cereals with olive gardening coupled with livestock activities. These agricultural activities are practised together in a larger scale, average of 47 hectares. As small-scale farms; farmers belong to this farm type don't have off-farm employment and their education level is secondary.

Large Scale Farms

Large-scale farm type represents larger scale agriculture activities based mainly on tree and cereal cultivation, with an average size of 107 hectares. In this farm type farmers do not engage in livestock activities. Large-scale farms also have higher levels of education, with university degrees, as well as non-agricultural professions.

For more information regarding the Representative Farms, including detailed datasets and methodological notes, please download the files below.

Download files

Agroecological practices

Name	Forage Mixture
Summary	This AEP introduces a forage mixture into the current production system. A combination of vetch (75%) and oats (25%) replaces traditional forage crops to improve feed quality and enhance drought resilience.
Assumptions	Usual forage species (oat or barley, but only one at a time) will be replaced by a forage mixture of %75 vetch and 25% oat to enhance the nutritional quality of the forage. The forage mixture will be used as cut feed, not grazing. Seeds will be provided by the private sector based on improved varieties. Information from the field: Livestock in the LL is mainly sheep, Farmers also use concentrate. There are problems in maintaining livestock due to the high cost of feed and drought seasons (they can’t cultivate forage crops during the drought seasons).
Technical details	Yield The yield level will be higher than the existing forage crops which are barley or oat since it’s a mixture of two different crops. Information regarding the yield levels will be obtained from the experiments. Activities and Labour Mechanization: Will remain the same as oat or barley. Sowing: Seeder should be calibrated, often need to stop and mix again seeds since it’s not only one species but two. This will cause more time and more labor (1.5 to 2 times more). Tillage: Will remain the same as oat or barley. Weeding: Will remain the same as oat or barley. Herbicide: They can’t use dicotyledon herbicides due to the mixture (vetch is dicotyledon) No herbicides. Chemical Fertilization: Vetch is legume, N fertilizer will not be applied. Only one application before sowing: DAP (100kg per ha). Organic Fertilization: None. Pesticide: No pesticide (unless symptoms appear, applied when there is pest/diseases attack). Harvest: Cut before maturity (in May). Residue Since it will be cut, roots will remain in the soil. Seeds 150 kg per ha of seeds for sowing. Seeds will not be harvested. Straw Yield 265 bales per ha (information from a farmer who implemented this AEP in the LL in 2025 together with intercropping, in olive garden). Hypotheses and Scenarios Hypothesis: Without reasonable prices of the seeds, farmers won’t adopt the forage mixture practice Scenario 1: Business as usual (BAU). Scenario 2: Forage mixture seeds available at 4 TND/kg.

Indicators

Agronomic

	Living Lab Scale		Baseline
	RF1	RF2
Crop Pattern	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Lorem ipsum
Land Use	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Lorem ipsum
Pesticide Use	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Lorem ipsum
Nitrogen Leaching	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Lorem ipsum

Socio-economic

	Living Lab Scale		Baseline
	RF1	RF2
Total Farm Income	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Information to be provided by CIHEAM	Lorem ipsum

Download Simulation Results

Potential dissemination at national scale of AEP depending on Agroecological zones.

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Further results

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