Knowledge Management Portal

Barley and grass pea are among few crops with potential to withstand drought, heat, salinity and can contribute to sustaining the livelihoods of poor communities linving in the drylands, used for food and feed purposes. However, their productivities are low due to major foliar diseases and pest (barley) and to Orobanche (grass pea). Pre-breeding through introgressing useful genes from wild relative species to overcome these limitations offers opportunities for ensuring substential genetic gains.

The project will sustain and fully operationalize the five regional research centers of ICARDA already established in Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, and Jordan to be able to develop new varieties and appropriate agriculture technologies; contribute to the enhancement of food, nutritional and water security; prompt the conservation and sustainable use of agro-biodiversity; enhance knowledge and experience exchange among Arab countries and capacity development of young Arab scientists.

The "Training support for Wheat Rust Diseases" project contributes to increased resilience of smallholder farmers' livelihoods in Central Asia and the Near East to rust disease threats. To this end, surveillance, diagnosis, and prevention activities will be enhanced by national authorities and key stakeholders to reduce the impact of crises, through the implementation of a training workshop, field surveys, and data collection and analysis.

The livestock sector represents an important agricultural activity in Tunisia and generates significant additional income, in particular, for small farmers and the landless. Red meat is the main livestock product produced in Tunisia and is extremely diverse, with 47% derived from cattle, 45% from sheep and 8% from goats. The quality and quantity of forage produced coupled with the unbalanced feeding of livestock in rural Tunisia are not sufficient and stable enough to ensure high-quality red meat production. The adoption of diversified feeding regimes that are based on locally produced feeds and by-products can address this issue. The project offers an integrated package of successfully tested proven technologies of locally adapted feed and forage supply, combined with extension services and organizational support for smallholder farmers as well as business development support for local manufacturers. These interventions have been shown to have an immediate impact on livestock production, and on rural livelihood. The project was implemented under two agro-ecological systems:(I) the agropastoral system: Sidi Bouzid, Kairouan and Kasserine (less favourable) and (2) the livestock-cereal-based system Beja, Jendouba and El Kef (more favourable zones).

The project organizes a series of training with the objective to enhance capacity development about modern agricultural techniques. The target group of the training are government officials and researchers, mainly in Afghanistan.

Lentil is an important crop for the Canadian economy, and has been well recognized for its nutritional values and its potential to serve as part of the solution in combating global food insecurity issues. For this reason the project purpose is to study in deep the genetic potential of lentils and develop new tools to improve the agility of the breeding program and breeders to use germplasm in their crosses and incorporate desirable traits with greater precision.

Although Jordan is a water-poor country with a harsh climate, it has considerable biodiversity, 90% of Jordan is an arid rangeland, or Badia, and faces substantial degradation due to overgrazing and low-beneficial barley agriculture. USFS and ICARDA will establish a pilot-scale project to restore a degraded Jordanian rangeland watershed, both upland and gully area, and to evaluate the restoration impacts on the development of the ecosystem services particularly targeting soil and vegetation.