Transformed Project: Promoting Agroforestry To Regenerate Degraded Soils In The Southern Mediterranean Basin
06 November 2024, France: After decades of intensive farming practices that have degraded soil quality and fertility, as well as the challenges related to climate change, the innovative project TransforMed aims to reverse these trends in the Mediterranean region. Fifteen organisations, including FiBL France and FiBL Germany, are taking on the challenge. The project is part of the PRIMA program: Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Region, funded by European Union.
Due to years of successive droughts, heat waves, and poorly regulated intensive agricultural practices, many regions in the Mediterranean basin are experiencing deterioration of soil, resulting in a loss of agricultural production potential. Consequently, the economies of rural populations are weakening, and farmland is gradually being abandoned.
Agroforestry Systems (AFS) offer an excellent multidimensional restoration strategy to tackle these challenges and facilitate farm recovery. AFS improve soil quality and enhance the biodiversity and productivity of agroecosystems. Additionally, beyond the biophysical benefits, AFS can improve the livelihoods of smallholders and contribute to job creation by developing value chains for AFS products.
The project’s key focus areas
Based on the experiences of several agroforestry lighthouses (e.g. pilot projects) in Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey, TransforMed aims at supporting the large-scale adoption of agroforestry systems in saline, wind-eroded and infertile areas.
The project will be focusing on:
- Scaling up successful practices that are ongoing in four lighthouses in the Southern Mediterranean regions,
- Using local stress-tolerant and diverse crops (e.g. argan, carobs, and up to 15 other species), whose increased productivity can be essential to promoting socio-economic development in depressed regions,
- Increasing awareness and training local stakeholders to implement AFS,
- Identifying and overcoming the socio-economic and socio-cultural obstacles to the adoption of these systems, and
- Strengthening community self-governance to secure the establishment of the practices beyond the life of the project.
Particular attention will be given to understanding the needs of the Mediterranean contexts studied by the project, identifying the requirements in terms of theoretical knowledge and technical application of agroforestry systems. Finally, efforts will also be devoted to finding relevant and targeted ways to transmit knowledge, through outreach materials (technical sheets, learning documents) or through events aimed at tutoring and exchanging information with farmers, agricultural institutions, universities, and policymakers.
Project launch and the role of FiBL
The project officially kicked off on 26 September 2024, with a meeting in Meknes, Morocco. Representatives from the fifteen international partner institutions gathered to outline the project’s roadmap and collaborative efforts.
FiBL is a key partner in the TransforMed consortium, with participation from FiBL France and FiBL Germany. FiBL Germany is involved in the technical actions of the project related to the development of agroforestry systems, while FiBL France is responsible for communication and dissemination of the project, drawing on the strategy and expertise of the Knowledge Exchange department at FiBL in Frick. The TransforMed project follows the activities of the ConServeTerra and SustainSahel projects. This is an excellent opportunity to strengthen collaborations between the FiBL sites and leverage the complementary skills that the FiBL group brings to the project.
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