Patterns of Use of Residue Biomass in Cereal–Sheep Production Systems of North Africa: Case of Tunisia

Wafa Ameur, Aymen Frija, Mohamed Arbi Abdeladhim and Chokri Thabet
Additional contact information
Wafa Ameur: Institut Supérieur D’agriculture de Chott Mariem (ISA CM), University of Sousse, 4042 Sousse, Tunisia
Aymen Frija: International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), INRAT-Rue HédiKarray-CP, 2049 Ariana, Tunisia
Mohamed Arbi Abdeladhim: Ecole Supérieure D’agriculture Morgane (ESAM), University of Carthage, 1100 Zaghouan, Tunisia
Chokri Thabet: Institut Supérieur D’agriculture de Chott Mariem (ISA CM), University of Sousse, 4042 Sousse, Tunisia

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: This paper analyzes the complex relationships of factors influencing residue biomass management in cereal–sheep production systems in semi-arid areas of Tunisia. The Bayesian belief network (BBN) methodology was applied to identify factors enabling the better management of crop residue (CR) at the farm level. Data were collected from 152 farms located in the governorate of Siliana in north-west Tunisia. After designing the complex interactions between different variables that have an influence on the allocation of CR, BBN was also applied as a predictive model by inserting evidence conditional probabilities on the quantity of CR left on the soil and simulating the incurrent changes in the probability state of the remaining network variables. The results show that around 70% of farmers in our sample retain an overall quantity of CR lower than 200 kg/ha. The share of livestock income, livestock herds, cost of livestock feed, and off-farm income are all factors that have a strong influence on residue biomass management.

Keywords: crop residues; livestock; Bayesian belief network (BBN); natural resources management; livestock income; harvest index (HI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/7/612/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/7/612/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:7:p:612-:d:585279

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().