Several representatives of the entities involved in the TRANSITION project travelled to Alexandria, Egypt, to hold the first project meeting in the southern Mediterranean and to visit some of the pilot tests being carried out in this country by SRTA-City. TRANSITION is a project funded by Europe through the PRIMA Programme that focuses on the potential of agroforestry systems in the Mediterranean region to move towards more resilient agroecosystem models to global change.

To combat the effects of global change, agroecosystems in the Mediterranean region require a significant transformation from conventional agriculture towards long-term sustainable systems, including agroforestry systems and mixed farming. TRANSITION works to provide a good understanding of the barriers limiting the implementation of new practices in agroforestry and mixed farming systems in the Mediterranean region. From here, the project hopes to contribute to the development of new decision-making tools and to the elaboration of a regional road map well aligned with the priorities of the actors in the territory. The project involves 10 partners from 6 different countries and focuses on 5 study areas (3 in the Northern Mediterranean region: France, Italy, Spain; 2 in the Southern Mediterranean: Algeria, Egypt), as well as climate modelling experts from Greece.

After a consortium meeting to start tackling the last year of project implementation, all members had the opportunity to visit the SRTA-City experimental fields, where innovative agroforestry systems are being tested in Egypt. The visit focused on the plots where the feasibility of combining Jatropha trees with horticultural production is being tested.

The second part of the field visits focused on different agricultural areas around Alexandria, so that project members could see first-hand the socio-economic and environmental realities faced by local farmers.