This agroforestry-based three-storied cropping system accounts for the so-called ‘oasis effect’, i.e. creation of a microclimate conducive to agriculture. Date palms filter sunlight, while serving as a windbreak for the understorey crops and helping maintain soil moisture, which in turn reduces the air temperature. This multistoried cropping system also enhances the root distribution in the soil as well as plant uptake of available resources, including water. Ecologically intensive oasis agriculture is often associated with extensive livestock farming on vast rangelands—a combined mixed cropping- livestock farming system that enhances soil fertility. From the outset, oasis systems are intimately based on agrobiodiversity. Oases therefore have a diversified agricultural heritage. Morocco, for instance, hosts 453 date palm cultivars and over 2,300 natural hybrids, Tunisia (...)