Knowledge Management Portal

Strengthening Knowledge Management for Greater Development Effectiveness in the Near East, North Africa, Central Asia and Europe (SKiM) Project Newsletter, Issue 27, October 2022.

Travelling workshop was conducted during 19–21 October 2022 with total number of 124 participants including farmers from Oued Sbaihia and Gueffaya, Tunisia, experts from ICARDA, the General Directorate of Forests, and the Higher School of Agriculture of Mateur. The main objective of the traveling workshop was to increase awareness of farmers about sustainable silvopastoral restoration under changing climate and land use. Specific objectives include 1) demonstrate best practices for introducing forage legume species (sulla), multi-purposes shrub/tree and grazing management and 2) distribute sulla seeds to interested farmers. This travelling workshop was organized to be interactive and to share knowledge, lessons learnt and good practice, and of the kinds of problems which farmers face. Based on the discussion among the involved stakeholders’ recommendations were made.

In desert farming, water use efficiency is crucial for all plants including agroforestry crops such as date palm which are highly adapted to the desert ecosystems. To respond to the water use efficiency requirement in desert farming, innovation packages (Genetic, biophysical, and managerial) have been developed and deployed. Subsurface drip irrigation is one of such innovations. The system aims at minimizing water loss through evaporation, percolation and run of by directly delivering the water to the root zone. Subsurface irrigation is an improvement over the micro catchments established around the date palm trees. ICARDA and NARS partners in the Arabian Peninsula demonstrated that subsurface drip irrigation can save water in date palm production compared to conventional flood, drip, and bubbler irrigation systems Further improvement on sub surface irrigation is • Use of Ultra Low-Pressure Drippers (ULPD) to minimize energy consumption and facilitate us of solar energy • Placement of the ULPD within perforated tubes facilitating moisture distribution while preventing clogging

Control environment agriculture (CEA) is a key pillar of desert farming in desert farming. The main technical problem of conventional greenhouses is maintaining the inside air temperatures and relative humidity favourable for plant growth under desert farming system. The evaporative cooling system is widely used in the desert ecosystems with low efficiency due to the extreme temperature and relative humidity in the coastal areas. Moreover, the evaporative cooling system requires large amounts of water and grid energy which is not available in the desert ecosystems. Soilless production system enhances yield and water productivity. Nevertheless, greenhouse technology in these hot arid areas will need to overcome the evaporative cooling system constraints in the conventional greenhouses. ICARDA and national partners developed and tested a five combined technology package, namely closed hydroponic system, net house, ultra-low-pressure drippers, root zone cooling, and low-cost solar energy. Advantages: • Eliminate evaporative cooling system saving 85% of water used in greenhouse operation • Saving: 80% and 100% energy in the Hybrid and off-grid solar energy powered net houses • Extend the production period of net-house without quantitative and qualitative yield penalties • Enhance yield and quality of production compared to normal net-house • Significantly reduce the establishment and running cost compared to cooled greenhouses Two options of low-cost solar energy technologies, namely AC/DC hybrid and 100% off-grid are available in the market now (figure1 and Figure2). Utilizing solar energy reduces the running cost and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In UAE, a study on cucumber production under net-house with solar energy powered RZC resulted in: • Extending cucumber production until mid-June without quantitative and qualitative yield penalties • Water productivity per crop reached 37kg/m3 compared to 8 kg/m3 in a cooled greenhouse • 14% increase in net return and a 28% reduction in the cost of production • Saving 6650-kWh electricity, equivalent to 4.7 metric tons of Co2 sequestration.

This presentation provides information on the One CGIAR reporting on outputs (Cap dev, innovation development, knowledge products) and outcomes (Policy change, Innovation use).

The aim of this R4D Initiatives is to explore the profitability of manufactured feed pellets for small-scale crop-livestock farmers in Tunisia. During the past few growing seasons, within several R4D initiatives and projects (the SWC@Scale as part of the global GIZ ProSol Program; the CRP-Livestock “feed and forages”, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) funded CLCA phase 2), ICARDA and its national partners have introduced imported feed pellet machines that were donated with a 10% financial contribution (to ensure strong ownership of the technology) to some pre-selected professional farmer organizations (FO) (SMSA and GDA5) and individual farmers including agri-preneurs, with the idea of developing small feed businesses using these machines and boosting the nutrition of local herds. After assessing the available feed resources for each region (Northern, Center, and Southern), the leading members of each FO, under the supervision of the project’s scientific teams, developed various feeding formulas. Other farmers have been developing their own formulas based on consultation with local extension agents. Some of the formulas used by farmers are still under experimentation and will be the subject of this brief, aiming at validating their economic viabilities.

Credit Michael Mayor

13th Arab Congress of Plant Protection (13th ACPP), organized by the Arab Society of Plant Protection (ASPP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries of Tunisia, represented by the National Institute of Agronomic Research of Tunisia (INRAT), held during the period 16-21 October 2022 in Hammamet, Tunisia. A total of 270 scientists and graduate students from Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Oman, UAE, Palestine, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia participated in this event. In addition, experts from outside the region, USA, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey, Germany, Kenya and Pakistan, also participated in this congress. In addition, scientists from the International Organizations such as FAO, CIMMYT, ICARDA, CIHEAM, EPPO, MPU, ACSAD, AOAD, and IOFS attended the congress. ICARDA was one of the Gold sponsors, and CGIAR Germplasm Health Units (GHUs) was one of the Bronze sponsors of the 13th ACPP. Safaa Kumari (Head of ICARDA’s Seed Health Lab/Plant Virologist) was the senior editor of the abstracts book of 13th ACPP and authors/co-authors in 5 abstracts (https://hdl.handle.net/10568/127320). In addition, Safaa Kumari was elected as a President of the Arab Society for Plant Protection for the period 2023-2025. Mr Abd-Al Rahman Moukahel (Senior Research Assistant, Seed Health Lab - Lebanon) was selected for the best oral presentation award present by graduate students.