CTRD range development subproject

The Ministry of Agriculture"s (MOA) Office of Pastures (OEP) will implement the SP with help from the Central Tunisia Rural Development Authority (CTDA) and a contracted U.S. university. The OEP will introduce at the 12 sites a comprehensive package of upgraded vegetation control and stocking procedures such as rotational and deferred grazing, mechanical treatments of the soil, range seeding, range water development, and animal-raising techniques such as genetic improvement and enhanced nutrition. The OEP will use a phased approach, beginning with only 3 sites in the first 2 years, to enable it both to experiment with different RM techniques - thus increasing the probability of developing replicable practices - and to give its fledging RM Unit needed experience. Of the two sites chosen for the first year, one is a collective (Brikat) and the other privately owned (El Allah); both are located in Mairouan Governorate. The OEP, with the help of the TA team, will design the interventions, establish and sustain contact with participating farmers, train and assign qualified personnel, and provide logistical support for field agents. The OEP"s new RM Unit, a cadre of technicians skilled in the areas of sheep husbandry, forage materials, and RM, will be expanded to enable it to implement the SP. The SP will assign three U.S. resident advisors to this Unit and will also provide overseas M.S. training to ten MOA technicians (five in range management, three in livestock raising, and two in seed selection and multiplication) and 40 person-months of short-term training. OEP will coordinate SP implementation with other Government of Tunisia entities such as Affaires Foncieres (for questions of land titling), the MOA"s Division of Rural Engineering (for matters related to the mechanical treatment of soil, the construction of water catchment basins, and water diversion activities), and CTDA (for evaluating the SP and coordinating it with related interventions in Central Tunisia).