The Mediterranean agriculture systems have known increasing pressures that include demographic growth, urbanization, increasing demand for high value products, and a high competition for land and water. Besides some vulnerable zones in inland knows a dramatic departure of their active labor forces through migration that induces important changes of the global social and natural functioning of these zones. This is particularly relevant in arid and desert lands of south Mediterranean countries where the traditional societies used to explore and valorize vast uncultivated arid lands thanks to original livestock systems based on camels and small ruminants, grazing systems and mobility, and kinships links to manage common resources in their spatial and temporal dimensions. In particular, the system based on camel system at the interaction between oasis and desert lands has known radical functional changes over the last decades, due both to the urbanization and modernization of living conditions in the oasis and also to the intensification (or, sometimes, extensification) of the crop systems in these fragile environments that raise many challenges and also risks that can impede their durability. So the proposed project aims to describe, understand and model the past and recent trajectories of these “camel societies”, identify the main drivers (factors) that impact the combined social dynamic and ecosystems processes on the use of resources, in order to propose socially driven solutions emerging from the societies to sustain human activities and their local resources. The project CAMED proposes (i) to describe the past and recent trajectories of the societies based on dromedary system in Saharan zones of Algeria and Morocco (WP1) using holistic and systemic approaches (system approach at the community/territorial level and livelihood approach at the family level), and (ii) to analyze the present impacts of social and cultural changes and ecosystem dynamics on the whole socioecological systems (WP2) based on longitudinal and diachronic approaches at the farm, herd and resource system level. Along this process the research will have to determine critical key-pathways where sociocultural changes (WP1) affect radically ecosystem changes (WP2) and vice versa. The impact analysis in (WP3) will be based on the participatory impact pathway approach that will associate all the stakeholders of the local communities and policy-makers. The objective is to draw socially driven solutions. Some pilot projects related to value chain and resource management at the territorial level have been pre-identified. One important component of the project will be to provide research and development trainings (WP4) and share a common knowledge on these zones that are characteristics of the South Mediterranean countries. So this project proposes to combine systemic and holistic approaches, often used separately in human or natural/biological sciences, within selected socio-ecosystems related to camel society that have been little studied before. The goal is to share common scientific and indigenous knowledge between research and society related to these systems and to propose relevant actions for decision makers related to these zones that cover more than one third of the selected countries (Algeria and Morocco).

The Mediterranean livestock farming systems need to adapt with multiple and complex changes in the past and present history of the zone. The project aims to assess technical, economic and socio-ecological viability of crop-livestock systems in the Mediterranean context to help farmers, local communities, researchers and decision markers in thinking future planning for Mediterranean livestock and design priorities, rules, policies that could better deal with the socio-environmental issues in link with demographic and land pressure, increasing demand and strong high international competition. The main objectives are: 1) identifying efficient crop-livestock systems to better utilize water, soil, crop residues, rangeland forages… (Resource utilization efficiency) and increase the production to meet the rising local demand of safe animal products (socio-economic efficiency); 2) assessing their adaptive capacities, vulnerability and flexibility faced to current stresses/changes; 3) assessing their socio-ecological co-viability and resilience with regard to demographic growth and in a historical perspective; and 4) developing future scenarios and priorities for livestock development in the Mediterranean context to increase their capabilities. The project will also strengthen collaboration and interdisciplinary between and within national teams in Mediterranean through sharing research methods and data bases. To achieve this, the project proposes: (i) identifying, characterizing and analyzing the efficiency of crop-livestock systems from the pastoral and agro-pastoral zones to the more intensified areas in link with water management (WP2&3); (ii) assessing their adaptive capacities to change and socio-ecological sustainability in link with climatic stresses, natural capital/resources, access to technology, social and political changes (including demography, land tenure, production incentives…) (WP4&5); (iii) in order to elaborate future scenarios of Mediterranean livestock systems (WP5); and (iv) in a research approach based on sharing methods and data between the national teams (WP1). The on-going or potential sustainable intensification processes are generally complex in the same agro-ecological zone and depend both on exogenous opportunities (market, incentives, available techniques, knowledge and experience…) and on endogenous capacities and representations (capital asset, land access, livelihood). The main challenge and opportunity of the project will be to integrate social and biological sciences and to develop an integrative and interdisciplinary analytical framework for assessing socio-ecological resilience of crop-livestock systems in the Mediterranean.

In the Mediterranean region, rangeland and pastoral systems considered as the traditional way of farming contain elements that can be proved of high value under the new conditions, related with the need for the protection of the environment and biodiversity and with consumer demands on safe and quality products. These production systems utilizing local genetic resources adapted to the production environment could increase their profitability through the modernization of the production systems and by enhancing the means of commercialization of the products.The project aims to investigate the factors that influence the sustainability of pastoral and rangeland production systems in the participating countries, focusing on sheep and goat production, and examine the adaptation strategies to the socio-economic and environmental challenges. Towards this aim, the following aspects will be examined: 1.) the different components of the production systems, 2.) the role of local authorities and the organisation at territorial level, 3.) the distribution of the products through the supply chain, the trends in the market and the role of the different stakeholders. Tools will be developed to support the sustainable development of the production systems contributing to the increase of the value of the breeds, their commercial valorisation, their uptake in agriculture and their positive impact in rural economies. The plan will allow to underline positive synergies in breeds-products interactions. The aim is to enhance the interactions between local genetic resources and quality products by (i) reviewing the existing strategies and (ii) supporting the development of new ones. The transverse analyses of specific case studies in the partner countries in a comparative way will allow the construction of specific guidelines to promote breeding programmes and valorisation strategies for local breeds. The outputs will provide practical frameworks for the valorisation of local genetic resources and the successful uptake of their products into the markets.

The FoSaMed project brings together Moroccan HEIs promoting inclusive education through curriculum development and teacher education on Food Safety. Specific objectives include the development of a joint Master Programme, within the curricula of the Agronomic and Veterinary Institute Hassan II (IAV), the Faculty of Sciences Ibn Tofail (IBN), the National School of Agriculture of Meknés (ENA), and the Université Mohammed Premier (UMP) supported by the project coordinator, University of Évora (UEVORA), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED).The topic of Food Safety has been explored through an extensive and focused desk research and consultations with partners (via a survey), to identify the current state of the art in Morocco. The effective needs and requirements for the curriculum of the new Master has been considered to define the proposed training actions.Food safety and its control is of major importance to Morocco. To assure the protection of consumers and facilitate commerce of local products it is necessary to increase the protection level adopting sanitary measures like EU rules. The valorisation of local products to develop trade is vital to keep/increase employment levels. Governmental efforts face a wide range of difficulties, mostly related to the lack of scientific knowledge and technical expertise.To develop institutional and individual capacities, support modernisation and internationalisation of HEIs and reduce the existing constraints, FoSaMed aims to train teachers within the framework of a new Master on Food Safety, to capacitate students to develop and upgrade their knowledge and technical skills on food safety issues, allowing them to acquire new methodological and technical abilities to face the upcoming challenges in the Food Industry sector. The project foresees training of teachers in the 4 Moroccan HEIs, which will have upgraded food safety labs for hands-on training of teachers and students.

MASCC aims to address mitigation and adaptation strategies to global change by assessing current and future evolution of Mediterranean agricultural soil vulnerability to erosion in relation to projected land use, agricultural practices and climate change. It targets to i) assess the similarities/dissimilarities in dominant factors affecting the current Mediterranean agricultural soil vulnerability by exploring a wide range of Mediterranean contexts; ii) improve the ability to evaluate the impact of extreme events on both the current and projected agricultural soil vulnerability and the sediment delivery at catchment outlet; iii) provide benchmarks regarding the vulnerability of agricultural production to a combination of potential changes in a wide range of Mediterranean contexts, iv) and provide guidelines on sustainable agricultural conservation strategies adapted to each specific agro-ecosystem taking into consideration both on- and off-site erosion effects and socio-economics issues. To reach these objectives, the MASCC project will gather researchers from 6 Mediterraneanean countries (France, Morocco, Tunisia ; Italy, Spain, Portugal) that monitor mid- to long-term environmental catchment and that get mutual knowledge due to previous projects and network. The major advantages for the project are: i) the availability of an unrivalled database on soil erosion, (innovative) agriculture practices covering a wide range of Mediterranean contexts, ii) the capacity to better evaluate the impact of extreme events on soil erosion, iii) the availability of the LANDSOIL , a catchment-scale integrated approach of the soil-landscape system that enables to simulate both the sediment fluxes at the catchment outlet and the soil evolution properties, iv) the multi-disciplinarity of the involved researchers with an international reputation in the fields of soil science, modelling changes in soil properties, erosion and sediment transport, agronomy and socio-economy. The MASCC project will be conducted through a coordination and dissemination workpackage and three scientific work-packages : WP1 will consist in elaborating plausible scenario (climatic, land use and adaptative innovative agricultural practices) for the future (20 to 50 years); WP2 will simulate soil vulnerability for current conditions and scenarios from WP1; and WP3 will focus on the comparative evaluation of present and future on-site and off-site effects of soil erosion on agriculture sustainability.