Agricultural demonstration pilots in the SASS basin

Agricultural demonstration pilots in the SASS basin: Towards a Sustainable and Profitable Agriculture in the Sahara

"The North-Western Sahara Aquifer System (SASS) is a basin of over 1,000,000 km2 shared by three countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) whose water reserves are substantial with an almost fossilized aspect. The implementation of “Agricultural Demonstration Pilots” within the framework of the SASS III project was intended to demonstrate within a participatory approach, the feasibility, effectiveness and efficiency of technical solutions to local problems of unsustainability management and operation of the SASS resource in irrigation in the three countries sharing the resource.

Six agricultural demonstration pilots at farm scale level, with different themes, were implemented by farmers themselves in the three countries. The technical innovations introduced aimed at the intensification of cropping systems, water saving and the improvement of the resource’s valorization through the selection of high added value crops.

The results obtained after two crops in the three countries help confirm the availability of efficient technical solutions for the renovation of cropping systems and making them viable at farm level. What remains to be done, however, is validating these results and making them reliable on a larger spatial scale in pilot “production systems” integrating the various local structural constraints to the development of irrigation in the SASS area."