Sustainability assessment of small dairy farms from the main cattle farming systems in the North of Tunisia

Demand for animal products is expected to increase due human population growth, resulting in a need increased production. At the same time, climate change poses major threat viability and sustainability of livestock production systems. This study aimed evaluate compare sus-tainability dairy cattle farms belonging three farming systems (rainfed, irrigated, mixed) at northeast zone Tunisia using IDEA method (version 3). Collected data 102 were subjected an analysis variance GLM procedure SAS software 9.4). Results showed that socio-territorial scale was limiting factor all irrigated sys-tem had lowest scores agro-ecological scales, compared other ones, but it recorded highest score economic scale. The best characterized mixed system. However, on Finally, rain-fed system exhibited medium performances scales. It concluded differ-ence between farm systems, there no disassociation dimensions; thus, improvements should proceed across scales simultaneously.