Appropriate Technologies for Drought Mitigation in Agropastoral Areas of

The North Africa region, comprising Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, has been identified as a hot spot for high vulnerability to climate change. ICARDA has established a strong partnership in dryland research jointly with national agricultural research systems (NARS) with a focus to reduce food insecurity and enhance sustainable livelihoods of farming communities. Agriculture in the region is marked by acute water scarcity and strong dependence on low, erratic and decreasing rainfall and a predominance of rainfed crop-livestock systems. High population growth rate coupled with low agricultural productivity led to widening food deficits that are met by increasing food imports. The pastoral and agropastoral systems in North Africa have been submitted to deep mutation that affects the mobility pattern of the flock, the feeding strategy which relies more on supplement feeds rather than natural grazing. Production systems are intensifying and it is now possible to find in the steppe a continuum between intensive fattening units that are developing in peri-urban areas and along the main transportation routes, mixed grazing-fattening systems, and purely intensive systems based on hand feeding only to provide feed supplements to animals. Agropastoral societies have developed their own strategies for coping with drought and climate fluctuation. ICARDA worked on two major themes to help pastoralists to adapt to these deep changes, namely matching small ruminant breeds to environment and developing efficient animal feeding techniques that lower the cost of production while using local products. Indeed, in North Africa 7 of the 16 sheep breeds of the arid regions are at high risk of disappearance, either because animals are totally replaced by exotic species or because they are crossbred with more productive breeds. On the other hand, many experiments have shown that efficient animal feeding using local alternative feeds like by-products processed as feed blocks, native or exotic shrubs (Atriplex) and trees (Acacia) allow significant reduction in feeding costs and reduce import of cereals.