With the aim of targeting policies towards smallholders, Tunisia has recently joined the WAW network and inter-regional collaboration will be facilitated by a newly approved TCP.  This TCP aims to reinforce national capacities to better analyze the diversity of agricultural holdings within the country, feeding into more targeted policy and adopted extension methods, while building on experiences from other countries.  In Tunisia, the project will benefit from other ongoing initiatives to improve data and farm assessments. These include, more notably, a TCP on small family farming, the preparation of the next agricultural census, an in-depth survey, in collaboration with university and students, of family farms in 3 districts, and a cross-institutional initiative to improve methodologies, collection and analysis data of costs of production of cereals, milk and olives.   Recent meetings highlight some of the activities being undertaken related to the family farming study and the those linked to cost of production analysis.

On May 21, a meeting was convened by the “Direction General des Etudes et Developpment Agricole”  to present on-going work on improving estimation methods for calculating farm level cost of production data for cereals.  The meeting regrouped over 60 professionals from different institutions. All agreed that collaboration on improving these estimations is key to ensuring effective policy and planning while dissemination and analysis of this farm level data offers planners and farmers with an effective tool for benchmarking the competitiveness of their production within a  farm typology lens. Further field tests are being planned in September, activities which will be extended to milk and olive production, and an information system for data collection and analysis (analytical tool) is being developed. Further dialogue will focus on typologies of farms with the aim to feed into the identification of an integrated farm typology and information system. These systems would serve both the generation of cost of production data and micro-economic data along typology of agricultural holdings.

On July 10, a meeting was organized to discuss the first results of a study on family farms in Tunisia, undertaken through a partnership between FAO and research institutions (ESA Mograne, INAT  and IRA Médenine). 25 students implemented surveys on family farming during their internship period. WAW notably funded 3 internships to collect data on larger family and non- family farms. Around 1,500 surveys were implemented the results of which shall be analyzed with a support of master level students, again with a typology focus. Lessons were learnt on the data collection process as well as methodological approaches. A longer term partnership is being envisaged to facilitate generation of regular field data on family farms. This would require a better preparation in the curriculum of the students. Such a research partnership could also be part of the vision of a long term improvement of monitoring systems of farms in Tunisia.

Finally, the government is initiating its first agricultural Census with initial methodological and financial support from FAO. The collaborative work on typology, with links between different national initiatives, could support the identification of key variables to be collected. This approach also is in line with the focus of the Global Strategy on Enhancing Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), which prioritizes the generation of integrated surveys which are harmonized in order to cost-effectively respond to numerous national priorities.