Organic olive growing farms’ sustainability assessment: the Tunisian case

Water Accounting for Food Security: Virtual Water and Water Productivity in the Case of Tunisian Olive Oil Value Chain

“…In the agriculture phase, the importance of the application of a whole technical package and a controlled and efficient use of water in order to improve the profitability of olive cultivation [30,31]. Certainly, the excessive supply of water can in no way lead to higher profitability on olive farms conducted on an irrigated system because of the high cost of production of this system and because of the possible loss of water outside the period of high needs of the plant [30][31][32]. However, a suitable combination of inputs with the full crop technical operations (pruning and tillage) is necessary to improve productivity.…”

“…This makes it interesting to consider the possibility of improving results in the studied area (for example, through complementary irrigation in the rainfed mode in the critical phase of the plant instead of a complete intensification of the system or through the best control of the production factors). This will allow an improvement in production without compromising many production factors and additional production costs [32]. In reality, good production is not only conditioned with the high supply of water, but also with the full control of the technical package and with the control of water doses proportionally with plant's needs [29][30][31].…”

“…This explains the diversification in recent years of olive production systems. In fact, in Tunisia, in addition to the conventional production system in rainfed systems, we can observe the existence of other production systems that are conducted in irrigated systems, namely the intensive system, the dynamic system, and the super high-density system, in addition to other systems conducted in organic or biodynamic modes [30][31][32].…”