Application of Biosaline Agricultural Systems in Salt-Affected North African Areas

North African farms face challenges related to economic expansion, sustainable use of saline water, and soil conservation. These farms are generally located in agro-ecological zones characterized by semi-arid climates where irrigation water salinity exceeds 7 dS/m in many cases, and high temperatures and evaporative demand, and a high risk of soil salinization are prevalent.

With these constraints to agricultural production, biosaline agricultural systems make it possible to achieve the expected agricultural returns on investment by customizing solutions for the use of available saline water for irrigation, selection of the adapted cropping systems composed of salt-tolerant fodders for animal feeding, optimization of the crop management systems enabling higher productivity, and recycling of the farm byproducts to enhance soil fertility.

This training course focuses on:

1. Salinity Assessment
2. Crop Diversification: selection of new adapted crops
3. Optimizing irrigation and other management systems for new crops
4. Set-up of scalable integrated fodder-livestock models