TWISTT-PRIMA asks farmers about new ways to manage
water in the Kairouan region (Tunisia)

A member of the TWISTT-PRIMA team in Tunisia talks with a farmer (Kairouan region, June 2026).

TWISTT-PRIMA is a research project about water in farming. Its full name is “Bridging soil-plant-atmosphere dynamics with advanced Earth Observation to address water accounting in the Mediterranean.” In Tunisia, the project team is led by INRAT (the National Institute of Agricultural Research of Tunisia) and works with the CRDA of Kairouan (the regional agriculture office). The team has done a field survey with local farmers. The goal is to learn how ready farmers are to use new and better ways to manage water in the Kairouan region.

This is a participatory approach. This means the team works together with the farmers. In the survey, the team asks about three main things: how farmers irrigate their crops today, what problems they have with water, and what they think about the new tools and ideas that the project offers.

The survey also looks for the reasons that help or stop farmers from using these new solutions. These reasons can be social, economic, technical, or about rules and institutions. By putting farmers at the centre, TWISTT-PRIMA wants to understand their real needs, their hopes, and how well they can adapt. This is important because water is becoming more scarce and the climate is changing.

Kairouan is one of the six pilot sites of TWISTT-PRIMA. The project is funded by PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) and is coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). It works in four Mediterranean countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Italy, and Spain. These countries have different weather, crops, and ways to manage water. In each place, the project uses satellite data, computer models, ground surveys, and social research to measure water use better and to help farmers irrigate in a smarter way.

This survey follows a workshop held on 30 and 31 March 2026 in Tunis and Kairouan, together with CRDA Kairouan. In that workshop, the team checked the survey questions and put soil-moisture sensors in the pilot field. Now the team brings these questions to the farmers in the field. In this way, the project tools meet the real life of farmers.

Working together with farmers

For several days, the team visited farms across the Kairouan area. They saw olive farms, fruit trees, and vegetable plots like tomatoes. They met the farmers on their land, near their farm buildings, and in the villages. Each talk follows a list of questions. The team asks how farmers decide to irrigate: where the water comes from, how and when they water, how much the water and energy cost, which crops they grow, and what makes good water use difficult.

Talking about irrigation and water needs with a farmer in his olive grove (TWISTT-PRIMA, Kairouan).

Meeting farmers in the field is better than sending a survey by email. The team can see the irrigation system with their own eyes. They can build trust with the farmers. And they can understand the real situation behind each answer. This direct talk helps the team learn which tools can work in Kairouan, and when farmers would really want to use them.

What the survey asks about

In the talks, the team collects information about:

Needs and hopes: the help, information, and conditions farmers need to use water better.

A tomato field with drip irrigation, next to olive trees (one of the farming systems in the survey), Kairouan region.

Farmers at the centre

The survey talks with many types of farmers, from small farms to family farms. This mix of voices and farming systems is important. It makes the survey more complete. It will help TWISTT-PRIMA design solutions that fit the real life of the Kairouan region.

Talks with farmers across the Kairouan irrigated areas (TWISTT-PRIMA, June 2026).

From the survey to better solutions

The results of this survey will help the project create solutions that fit the Kairouan region. The team will join the farmers’ views with the project’s satellite data, water models, and field measurements. In this way, TWISTT-PRIMA wants its new tools to be good in science, but also easy to accept and affordable for the people who will use them.

In the end, this farmer-centred survey supports the main goal of the project: to help farming in the Mediterranean become stronger, more sustainable, and more water-efficient. The aim is simple: to know where every drop of irrigation water goes, and to use it as well as possible.

Writing down a farmer’s irrigation habits and his ideas about new tools (TWISTT-PRIMA, Kairouan region).

Many thanks to the farmers of the Kairouan region for their time, and to INRAT, CRDA Kairouan, and all the project partners for their help with this fieldwork.