Adoption of Conservation Agriculture Technologies by Smallholder Farmers in the semiarid region of Tunisia: Resource constraints and partial adoption

Abstract

Tunisia, like many other countries, suffers from land degradation. Conservation agriculture is among the proper solutions to overcome this issue. The objective of our investigation is to determine the factors that influence the adoption of CA in Siliana, one of Tunisia’s most affected regions by erosion. A field survey was conducted to collect adoption data used for descriptive analysis, and for the estimation of a choice model (Logit). Results show that the adoption of CA technology is positively determined by the level of farmers’ education, quality of extension services, the type of land ownership and production of durum wheat in conventional seeding. In contrast, the decision to adopt CA technique is constrained by the low farming experience, existence of off-farm income, and by the number of livestock units per hectare available at the farm level.