Résilience des ménages face à l’insécurité alimentaire et au changement climatique dans les régions du centre et du nord-est de la Tunisie : Une analyse empirique

With a clear decrease in the agricultural households’ incomes, the increase of food and production
factors prices, and the negative effects of climate change on agricultural production, smallholders’
farmers are facing food insecurity challenge, especially in arid regions. The objective of this paper
is to examine the resilience of households to food insecurity and to identify the determinants of
this resilience in two study areas: Kairouan (in the center) and Zaghouan (in the northeast). The
study relied on a cross-sectional database collected from 671 smallholder farmers. Multivariate
techniques including factor analysis and linear regression models were used to measure resilience
and identify its determinants. The results indicate that the levels of vulnerability and resilience are
different depending on the specificity of the region. In Zaghouan, 63% of agricultural households
are vulnerable, 5.5% are moderately vulnerable, 3% are resilient and 28% of households are very
resilient. On the other hand, 51% of households surveyed are vulnerable in Kairouan, about 3%
are moderately vulnerable, 4% are resilient and 42% of households are very resilient. The results
reveal that the most important determinants of household resilience to food insecurity and climate
change are “income and access to food”, “ownership of assets”, “access to basic services” followed
by “adaptative capacity”, and “Social Safety Networks”. The “climate change” negatively affect
household resilience and should be further investigated in the long term. Interventions must target
strategies that address the different levels of resilience reflected by the resilience estimators. These estimators were generated by focusing mainly on building farmers’ knowledge of how to face the different difficulties and challenge.