Summary
The existing agro-system in the Sehoul region which has many positive effects, in social and environmental terms, can be rather inefficient; the economic income from this association grains/breeding is irregular. The annual production is less than 15q/ha and the income under the severe dry climatic conditions of some years is not sufficient to maintain a sustainable equilibrium. As the possibilities for diversification of the production are limited to some great farmers and as the development of breeding is exposed to risks, the adoption of other activities and emigration seem to represent now the unique options for small farmers to respond to the scarcity of their income.
For all these reasons, the Sehoul environment is characterized by soil erosion and land degradation. But, because of poverty and the absence of traditions of the resources protection, this has not lead to investment in adaptive management strategies. There are, however, several measures, like crop rotation, mobile breeding, ploughing along the contours which signify the will to restore soil fertility and reduce soil degradation. But the indicators of degradation are much more important than those of conservation.
During the WB3 process 8 of the presented options were classified on the basis of 12 criteria, economic (cost of production and of implementation of SWC technology, agricultural yield, animal production, general income), ecological (recharge of the groundwater, density of the plants and soil cover, fertilization, reduction of the soil loss), and socio‐cultural (social cohesion, organization of the population, job creation, valuation of the land, reduction in the working hours and time availability for other activities).
The farmers' choice was for the conservation of the current system based on cereals and grazing, to add a minimum of innovations, and to minimize the effort necessary to implement these innovations. They gave privilege to the solution of grass strips, because cereals will remain dominant between these strips and because the latter will serve as a fodder complement.
Based on the choice for the techniques recommended by the workshop, and the feasibility of implementation the following 3 techniques are tested:
- Implementation of permanent grass strips between annual cultivations
- Improve of the land cover in autumn, before the first rains, in cereal fields, by the conservation of mulch and the choice for minimum tillage. This choice follows the desire of farmers to continue on cereal system and our will to prove that it is possible to conserve the soil on quite steep slopes devoted to annual cultivations by the introduction of some small innovations.
- Protection of slopes affected by gullies and rills by the plantation of fodder trees like Atriplex. The choice can be explained by the will to demonstrate that the grazing areas can be more productive and at the same time less eroded if the soil cover is improved.
