In a semi-arid environment like Tunisia, irrigation leads to increasing the land value. Many farmers do not own any or enough land to farm. For them, getting an irrigated plot to crop through a land contract is the only solution. Some others have access to land, but do not have the necessary financial resources or technical knowledge to farm it. The objective of our study is to show the role of leasehold and sharecropping and their impact on farms operation and on overall performance of the irrigated scheme. The case study is the irrigated scheme of Gaâfour, located in the northwest of Tunisia, characterized by a diversity of land statutes and tenure arrangements.

Keywords: Land, leasehold, sharecropping contractual arrangement, irrigated scheme, performance.

Photos: Growing peppers, Gaâfour, Tunisia     ©Inès Gharbi