Beyond the Olive Grove: What Mixed Farms Reveal About Rural Life and Income in Tunisia

In northwestern Tunisia, researchers have been examining farms that spread that responsibility across olives, other crops, and livestock, looking at how these different arrangements relate to income, farming practices, and everyday life.

An olive harvest carries a lot of responsibility on a small family farm, especially when rainfall is unreliable and much of the household income depends on what the trees produce. In northwestern Tunisia, researchers have been examining farms that spread that responsibility across olives, other crops, and livestock, looking at how these different arrangements relate to income, farming practices, and everyday life.

The study, "Agroecological transition in olive-based farming systems among smallholder farms in northwestern Tunisia," published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, examined 60 farming households in Elles, in Tunisia's Kef Governorate. Rihab Mejri and colleagues found that farms combining trees, crops, and animals generally scored higher on agroecological practices and reported higher incomes, though the environmental and social findings were much less straightforward.

What 60 Farms Reveal About Farming Under Pressure

Elles receives roughly 350–450 millimetres of rain a year, with hot, dry summers that make farming heavily dependent on the weather. Eighty per cent of the surveyed farms covered less than 10 hectares, and farming provided around 72% of farmers' income, making decisions about crops and livestock closely tied to household security.

The researchers used the Food and Agriculture Organization's Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation, known as TAPE. Agroecology brings ecological processes into farming decisions, including how nutrients are reused, how different farm activities support one another, and how knowledge and opportunities are shared.

Its Characterization of Agroecological Transition score, or CAET, combines 35 indicators across 10 areas covering diversity, recycling, efficiency, resilience, interactions between farm activities, knowledge sharing, social values, food traditions, local economic cooperation, and governance. Separate measures examined income, productivity, biodiversity, soil health, and social outcomes.

Farmers took part in face-to-face interviews supported by field observations. The researchers discussed their findings with farmers, the local agricultural development group, and agricultural officials to understand how the numbers fitted local experience. Four farm types emerged: 14 grew olives alone, 13 combined olives with other crops, 15 kept livestock alongside olives, and 18 brought olives, other crops, and livestock together.

The Difference Comes From How the Parts Work Together

Average agroecological scores rose from about 31% for olive monocultures to 37% for olive–crop farms, 46% for olive–livestock farms, and 52% for farms combining all three. The first two groups fell below the study's 40% threshold, identifying them as priorities for support.

Adding another crop does not automatically create a well-connected farming system. Crops can provide feed, animals can return nutrients through manure, and plant residues can be reused, giving farmers ways to make one activity support another rather than managing each as a separate enterprise.

Olive–livestock farms showed particular strengths in recycling and resilience compared with monocultures. Farms growing olives alongside other crops made smaller gains, suggesting that a wider range of products delivers only part of the potential benefit when nutrient recycling and other connections remain limited. The scores did not rise uniformly across every measure. Olive monocultures recorded the highest efficiency score, at 63%, slightly above the 61% recorded by the most diversified farms.

Higher overall scores were closely associated with stronger connections between farm activities, human and social values, diversity, recycling, and knowledge sharing. These areas form part of the overall score itself, so their relationships help describe the farming systems rather than prove what caused their performance.

Higher Income Does Not Tell the Whole Story

Average monthly income reached about 4,892 Tunisian dinars on farms combining olives, crops, and livestock, compared with 1,350 dinars on olive monocultures. Olive–livestock farms reported around 2,319 dinars, and olive–crop farms reported 1,279 dinars.

Annual added value followed a similar pattern, reaching roughly 36,200 dinars in the most diversified group against 8,831 dinars in monocultures. The highest monetary productivity measure belonged to olive–livestock farms, showing that no single arrangement led every economic measure.

The most diversified farms averaged 10.7 hectares, compared with 3.5 hectares for monocultures, and the analysis could not fully separate the influence of land area from farming practices. The income gap is not a prediction of what an individual farmer would earn by diversifying.

Environmental results challenged any simple claim that a higher agroecological score means a healthier environment. Measured agricultural biodiversity was highest on olive–crop farms and lowest on olive–livestock farms, with higher overall CAET scores associated with slightly lower biodiversity across the sample.

Soil health scores stayed within a narrow range of 6.2–6.8 out of 10 and showed almost no relationship with CAET. The researchers suggest that soil improvements may take years to become visible and may need more sensitive measurements; this survey did not demonstrate those improvements.

The most diversified farms recorded the highest youth employment figure, at 15.6%, though the relationship between youth employment and CAET across individual farms was weak. Dietary diversity differed little between groups. There was no clear relationship between CAET and women's empowerment. Eighty-eight percent of surveyed households were headed by men, and the empowerment measure was zero in 45 of the 60 households, leaving limited evidence for drawing broader conclusions about gender outcomes.

What Farmers Need Beyond a Change in Crops

Limited cooperation between producers, weak market connections, and insufficient advisory services restrict farmers' options. Discussions with local participants reinforced the importance of these barriers, particularly when farmers need reliable buyers, practical training, or support to turn new practices into dependable income.

The researchers recommend support suited to each farm type: help with diversification for monocultures, better recycling and connections between activities on olive–crop farms, and stronger nutrient management in systems that already keep animals. Financing, farmer-led learning, soil and water management, and better coordination with buyers belong alongside those changes.

Women's access to land, credit, and household decision-making needs direct attention, as do employment opportunities for younger people. Higher farm income cannot resolve those inequalities. This was a snapshot of one locality, with participants recruited through farmer networks rather than random selection. Each group contained only 13–18 farms, and the findings describe associations rather than prove that diversification caused higher incomes or better outcomes.

The study gives farmers and policymakers a useful starting point: farms can gain from connecting olives, crops, and animals more thoughtfully, but success needs to be checked in household earnings, soil, biodiversity, and people's opportunities separately.