Irrigated agriculture in the plain of Djeffara witnessed a boom for two decades (1980-2000) thanks to the political strategy that was adopted then by the Libyan authorities and which aimed to ensure food security in the country.

Large irrigated perimeters have been created and a number of wells were constructed by the Libyan government with a view of replicating the 1980-2000 heyday experience of agricultural prosperity in the Djeffara plain. However, this public policy was soon replaced by private investments conducted in the same region to take advantage of the constructed wells and which resulted in an uncontrolled overuse of water resources, a severe dewatering of the Djeffara water table, and the penetration of sea water. Thus, contrarily to the initial goal of strengthening irrigated agriculture in the Libyan Djeffara through the construction of wells, agricultural revenues have declined, which led to a gradual abandonment of irrigated farming in the region.

This pilot encompasses the agricultural problems of the entire irrigated lands in the Libyan Djeffara, namely irrigation water shortage, from which springs the need to look for alternative solutions in order to save the irrigated agriculture sector in the region within a sustainable development perspective.