Report on small seed treatment units for lead farmers in Tunisia

Abstract

The conventional national seed system in Tunisia is not providing enough quality forage seeds. Due to insufficient forage seed supply, but also to save costs, many small-scale farmers prefer using their own farm seed. The quality of these farm seeds is generally low as they are normally cleaned manually, so the final product still contains some unproductive seeds (broken seeds or small sized seeds). ICARDA and its national partners in Tunisia designed and developed a prototype of a “mobile seed cleaning and treatment unit” which has been locally manufactured at low cost. Four machines have been distributed to small cooperatives to produce improved seeds for their members, hence increasing feed production