Location
The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) was established in 1977. It is one of 15 such centers supported by the CGIAR. ICARDA’s founding mandate to promote agricultural development in the dry areas of developing countries remains highly relevant today.
ICARDA works with a tight focus on the problem-solving needs of resource-poor farmers, achieving this through the in-field delivery of its research outputs. Although global food production has increased by 20 per cent in the past decade, food insecurity and poverty remain widespread, while the natural resource base continues to decline.
International research centers such as ICARDA, which have helped drive previous improvements, continue to deliver new technologies to support sustainable growth in agriculture, and crucially, to work with a wide range of partners to accelerate the dissemination of these technologies.
ICARDA’s biggest strength is its staff – 600 highly skilled men and women from 32 countries. Our research and training activities cover crop improvement, water and land management, integrated crop-livestock-rangeland management, and climate change adaptation.
Other interventions include:
- Water harvesting - supplemental irrigation and water-saving irrigation techniques
- Conservation agriculture methods to reduce production costs and improve sustainability
- Diversification of production systems to high-value crops – horticulture, herbal and medicinal plants
- Integrated crop/rangeland/livestock production systems including non-traditional sources of livestock feed
- Empowerment of rural women – support and training for value-added products.
The ICARDA genebank holds over 135,000 accessions from over 110 countries: traditional varieties, improved germplasm, and a unique set of wild crop relatives. These include wheat, barley, oats and other cereals; food legumes such as faba bean, chickpea, lentil and field pea; forage crops, rangeland plants, and wild relatives of each of these species.
ICARDA’s research portfolio is part of a long-term strategic plan covering 2007 to 2016, focused on improving productivity, incomes and livelihoods among resource-poor households.
The strategy combines continuity with change – addressing current problems while expanding the focus to emerging challenges such as climate change and desertification.
We work closely with national agricultural research systems and government ministries. Over the years the Center has built a network of strong partnerships with national, regional and international institutions, universities, non-governmental organizations and ministries in the developing world and in industrialized countries with advanced research institutes.
THE ‘DRY AREAS’
Research and training activities cover the non-tropical dry areas globally, using West Asia, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus as research platforms to develop, test, and scale-out new innovations and policy options.
Dry areas cover 41 per cent of the world’s land area and are home to one-third of the global population. About 16 per cent of this population lives in chronic poverty, particularly in marginal rainfed areas. The dry areas are challenged by rapid population growth, frequent droughts, high climatic variability, land degradation and desertification, and widespread poverty. The complex of relationships between these challenges has created a "Poverty Trap."
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Resources
Displaying 351 - 355 of 431Systems approach to water productivity assessment using cropping system Models
Irrigation management of crops in Egypt is characterized by the application of more water than the crops require. In fact, large amounts of water are supplied without any estimates of the soil water content at the root zone. The rationale for doing so is the assumption that more irrigation water means a greater yield. So, eliminating the use of this unnecessary irrigation water could help save the resource, provided that this can be done with low yield losses.
Role of current policies and institutions Egypt in improving irrigated agriculture
The objective of any national water policy is, normally, to ‘Generate the maximum possible economic value for the nation’. Under water scarcity situations, water should be allocated so that users who generate a higher income per unit volume of water are given priority over those who generate less income. This applies not only to water quantity, but also to water quality. The above statements are valid when water is considered as an economic commodity.
Rainfed benchmark Site selection and characterization
From these workshops and an analysis of project documentation, we can conclude that possibilities for the improvement of water use do exist. These improvements depend not only on technical aspects, but also on organization and policy considerations.
Economic evaluation and adoption of improved technologies
In this study, an economic evaluation of water-use efficiency technologies proposed and tested by the agronomic team in the Tadla Irrigated Perimeter was carried out. To capture climatic variability, the analysis was conducted during two contrasting years (dry and wet). Total annual rainfall was 357 mm in 2005/06 (wet year) and 296 mm in 2006/07 (dry year). During the first year, precipitation was well distributed throughout the season. However, the second year was wet at the beginning, dry in the middle and very wet at the end of the season.
Impact of microcatchment water harvesting on the diversity of the Badia rangelands of Jordan
This study aimed at conducting the followings activities:
• To survey and identify the flora at the Mharib watershed (the intervention area of the Badia Benchmark Project),
• to study the effect of microcatchment WH techniques on the soil seed bank compared with the current situation,
• to evaluate the effect of microcatchment WH on the native vegetation regeneration and improvement, and
• to multiply and reintroduce the annual native plant species collected from the rangelands.
The study is presented in five main sections: