Cooperative Seeds
cleaned (t)
Seeds
treated (t)
Return
(TD)
Total
benefit (TD)
No of
users
El Amen 24.2 0 847 315 320
El Feleh 4.7 42.6 3,455 -13 200
Ettaaouen 14.6 131.1 9469 1467 120
Meliene 22.5 0 450 225 150
Total 66.0 173.6 14,221 1,994 790
Average 16.5 43.4 3,555 498.5 198
NUTRITION & FOOD
SECURITY
§ Innovative mobile machines have already served up to 800
farmers in four cooperatives.
§ Mobile units help to improve farm seed quality, hence
increase crop yield and income.
§ Mobile units reduce workload of rural women.
Mobile seed cleaning and treatment
units as business opportunities for
farmer cooperatives in Tunisia
Context
• Many small-scale farmers use manually cleaned
farm seeds for planting.
• Mobile seed cleaning units can improve seed
quality and increase yields.
• Mobile seed cleaning units can provide
additional income for farmer cooperatives.
Our innovative approach
• Co-develop the seed cleaning units with INGC
and “Atelier de Construction Arfaoui Taher”.
• Subsidize four units for farmer cooperatives.
• Train and coach coop farmers in use of seed
cleaning unit.
Future steps
• Develop and supply the four cooperatives with different
sized sieves for the cleaning unit so they can clean legume
fodder crop seeds like faba beans, vetch and chickpea.
• Monitor and coach cooperatives in business development
and scale the technology and business model.
Partners
• OEP (Pasture and Livestock Office)
• INGC (National Institute of Important Crops)
• Atelier de construction Arfaoui Taher
Outcomes
• Four cooperatives in Western Tunisia cleaned 66 tons and
treated 174 tons of cereal seeds in 2 months.
• Almost 800 farmers benefited from this innovative
technology.
• The low average benefit of about 500 TD (175 US$) per
cooperative is due to the marketing strategy (low service
price to attract more members as customers).
Udo Rudiger, ICARDA
u.rudiger@cgiar.org
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock thanks all donors & organizations which
globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.
cgiar.org/funders
This document is licensed for use under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International Licence. June 2020
Feed and Forages Flagship
Traditional manual
seed cleaning
Training to use the unit