Salah Selmi’s research while affiliated with Higher School of Agriculture, Mograne and other places

Family farming (FF) plays a key role in local economies that contribute to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worlwilde and especially in developing countries. Since 2014, the international agenda of the united nations has paid more attention to promote FF at the core of agricultural, environmental and social policies. Accordingly, many efforts at the national, regional and global levels have been made to support FF. In this context, it is so relevant to define tools that help monitor farmers’ performance and assist in better targeting policy measures. The objective of this study is to assess to what extent Tunisian farms, specialized in cereals production, are technically and environmentally efficient. To do so, we use a methodological approach that integrates pollution considerations based on state contingent techniques. Our results indicate that technical efficiency of family farms is slightly lower in bad (59%) than in good (64%) growing conditions while environmental efficiency can be improved more under good (65%) than bad (70%) growing conditions.

Family farming (FF) plays a key role in local economies that contribute to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worlwilde and especially in developing countries. Since 2014, the international agenda of the united nations has paid more attention to promote FF at the core of agricultural, environmental and social policies. Accordingly, many efforts at the national, regional and global levels have been made to support FF. In this context, it is so relevant to define tools that help monitor farmers’ performance and assist in better targeting policy measures. The objective of this study is to assess to what extent Tunisian farms, specialized in cereals production, are technically and environmentally efficient. To do so, we use a methodological approach that integrates pollution considerations based on state contingent techniques. Our results indicate that technical efficiency of family farms is slightly lower in bad (59%) than in good (64%) growing conditions while environmental efficiency can be improved more under good (65%) than bad (70%) growing conditions.

In Tunisia, date palm production is an important source of income for the farmers located in the major production regions in the southern Tunisia (Tozeur and Kebili). However, the average yield in this country is still low compared with those observed in the world. This work aims to study the economic and technical performance of farms in the Tunisian oases. The data used in this study were obtained in 2016 from 160 producers of dates in the main regions of production. The reconstituted costs approach was used to calculate the production costs of dates in the target regions. In addition, the Total Factors Productivity (TFP) and gross margin for each farms were estimated. The results show that economic performance indicators (production cost, gross margin and TFP) depend on the production region and farm sizes. The gross margin and the TFP are inversely related to the farm size. Resumé-La production des dattes présente une forte valeur marchande ce qui lui attribue d'être une source principale des revenus de ménages dans les principales régions de production au Sud tunisien (Tozeur et Kébili). Toutefois, le rendement des dattes reste encore faible par rapport à ceux des rendements mondiaux. Ce travail s'interroge sur la performance économique et technique des exploitations phoenicicoles dans les oasis de ces régions. Pour ce faire, une enquête par questionnaire a touché 160 producteurs des dattes en 2016 dans ces régions. L'approche des coûts reconstitués a été utilisée afin de calculer les coûts de production des dattes Déglet Nour. En outre, la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF) de production et la marge brute pour chaque exploitation ont été estimées. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les performances économiques (coût de production, marge brute et PTF) dépendent de la région de production et de la taille de l'exploitation. En effet, la marge brute et la PTF sont inversement proportionnelles à la taille de l'exploitation.