Knowledge Management Portal

Tracking the movement of the wheat rust pathogens and monitoring their pathogenic variabilities are the main pillars in successful breeding for durable rust resistance and disease management programs. Despite the severe drought conditions in wheat growing areas in CWANA in 2022, the rust surveillance was coordinated by the Regional Cereal Rust Research Center-Turkey in Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia, following the BGRI rust surveillance protocols. The national rust surveillance teams at the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (Morocco), and INSTITUT NATIONAL DES GRANDES CULTURES-TUNISIA (Tunisia) conducted the rust surveys in target countries. The GPS coordinates of survey sites, the status of rust diseases, and crop phenology were collected and shared with the online Global Cereal Rust Surveillance and Monitoring System (https://rusttracker.cimmyt.org) following the BGRI standard rust surveillance protocol (https://rusttracker.cimmyt.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2013-Updated-BGRI-protocols-v2-web.pdf).

The purpose of this Context Assessment is threefold: first, to characterize the environmental, social and economic and political contexts of the Tunisian ALL; second, to understand the data and information currently available in sub-region of the ALL, and third to characterize the extent to which agroecological principles are already being employed locally at the ALL levels. This report constitutes a basis of information and discussion to conduct the impact assessment. It is also valuable to all WPs in the Initiative as it provides critical quantitative or qualitative data and information regarding capacities assessment, policy influence, and other environmental attributes which can guide the initiative implementation and impact in 2023/2024. The present Context Assessment in Tunisia has been elaborated from primary and secondary sources of data. The primary sources of data are issued from focus groups and formal and informal interviews conducted in the targeted area between June and December 2022, as part of WP1 and WP4 activities. The secondary sources of data came from previous research and development projects, in addition to formal and grey literature or technical reports and policy documents. This report will be enriched with a household survey planned during the first quarter of 2023. This report contributes to Output 2.1. Baseline – current conditions of agricultural systems of small holder farmers in each ALL, Output 1.1 on establishment of the ALL, Output 4.1 on the identification of policies and local institutions and their role in the AE pathways.

Knowledge sharing and management for public institutions, as well as NGOs, community-based organizations and the private sector, is a key element to ensure appropriate dissemination and maintenance of knowledge and to build the capacity and development effectiveness in rural areas. Lessons-learned and scaling-up of results for enhanced impact in agricultural development must be undertaken to ensure that knowledge gaps are identified, and then filled, so that public institutions and organizations in-country can benefit and grow the required capacities for long-term knowledge management. This grant project, led by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) together with its international partners Virginia Tech, CIHEAM-Bari, PROCASUR and national partners in Moldova, Morocco, Sudan, was signed in June 2018. The project facilitates and supports knowledge management and capacity development activities in three selected countries (with the possibility of extending to an additional two). Increasing the capacities of participating public institutions in this work by providing necessary structures and systems at a country and regional level will ensure that knowledge being developed can be effectively managed for longer-term growth and development. The project website was created with related information at https://mel.cgiar.org/projects/738. This website describes background information, project team in more details, partners and stakeholders engaged, key documents and proposal, goals and objectives, impact pathway, focus countries, resources uploaded on website, news and events calendar.

Parasitic weeds (Orobanche and Phelipanche spp) are key production challenges in the northern parts of Ethiopia. In addition to parasitic weeds, faba bean gall disease is doubling the challenge on faba bean. Besides the reduction in yield, the two non-endemic pests are threatening the genetic diversity of food legumes since the landraces are highly susceptible. This report covers activities conducted in the 2021/22 cropping season

A policy recommendation on the use of drones in agriculture was made by the associate expert of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Dorin Afanas. The document has seven chapters, and one of them addresses the topic of research on the use of unmanned mobile systems in agriculture. Another chapter is about the innovative technology for monitoring the state of vegetation of agricultural crops. At the end, conclusions and recommendations are made, including policy recommendations for the authorities.

This paper analyzes the complex relationships of factors influencing rangeland governance in the arid areas. A Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) model was developed in a participatory way to illustrate and assess the weight of a combination of environmental, social and institutional factors enabling the achievement of strengthened rangeland governance at a local level. The Bayesian model was applied in Tataouine situated in south of Tunisia. A complex diagram was built in a participatory way to illustrate the most important interactions between rangeland socioecological system components. Then, a BBN model was applied for a predictive purpose, by inserting evidence conditional probabilities on the most frequent land tenure systems in the region, and thus exploring pathways to improve rangeland governance under each of these systems. Results show that overall improvement of rangeland governance in the study area is highly related to the type of tenure system, performances of farmers organizations, clarification of boundaries between neighboring rangelands, and diversification of the production systems in place by including other agricultural activities in addition to pastoralism. Pastoral areas with tenure systems characterized by combined grazing of private and collective rangelands were revealed to be the most constraining for successful rangeland governance. However, even under such tenure system, the improvement of a set of institutional attributes, especially in relation to the empowerment of farmers organizations can help improving local governance.

A training report on financial literacy for Sheep Fattening Youth and Women Groups.

A training report on gender empowerment for sheep fattening youth and women groups.