8th INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE

CoNSeRVATIoN AgRICuLTuRe foR SuSTAINABLe WheAT
PRoduCTIoN IN The hIghLANdS of CWANA RegIoN:
PoTeNTIAL ANd CoNSTRAINTS
M. H. Roozitalab 1 , M. R. J. Kamali 2 and E. De Pauw 3
1 ICARDA-Iran,
2 CIMMYT-Iran
3 ICARDA -Aleppo
E-mail Address of presenting author: m.roozitalab@cgiar.org
Highlands constitute about 27% of the total area of the CWANA region and more than
70% of the land in several countries of the region. These areas are characterized by elevation
of more than 800 mbsl, rugged terrain and cold winter. Extreme to very cold
highlands, with the mean annual temperature (MAT) of less than 5°C, make-up about
30% while the cold highlands, with the MAT in the range of 5 to 10° C, cover about 25%
of the highlands. Agriculture is mainly based on dryland crop production system with
winter and facultative wheat or barley as the main crops. The highlands are generally facing
high rate of rural poverty, low agricultural productivity and diversification, increasing
drought frequency and water shortages which are being exacerbated by degradation
of natural resources, i.e. soil, rangelands, and biodiversity. Continuous mono- cropping
based on wheat-wheat or wheat-fallow is still the predominant cropping systems either
under rainfed or irrigated conditions. Limited areas are under winter/facultative wheat in
rotation with spring chickpea. The yield gaps between the research sites and the farmers’
fields are relatively high and adoption rate of improved wheat cultivars and new agronomic
practices are still low, particularly under the dryland conditions.
Although, conservation agriculture (CA) or conservation tillage (CT) have been developed
and practiced on relatively large areas in the tropic and temperate zones around the
world on about 100 million hectares, however, it is not well developed and practiced in
drylands or irrigated areas of the highlands in the CWANA region. There is lack of integrated
research approach in many countries to define technical as well as socio-economic
constraints of the CA or CT under the farmers’ field conditions. However, limited research
has been carried out on zero or conservation tillage in Iran, Turkey and Morocco.
To increase wheat production and farmers income, it seems essential to incorporate supplemental
irrigation and crop rotation with legume crops in CA or CT technologies under
the dryland conditions.
The main constraints to CA/CT technology and adoption are lack of awareness and experience
with these technologies as well as lack of affordable and efficient locally-made CA/
CT machinery and equipments for small farmers. Increased labor demands for weeds
management, mainly due to unavailability of effective herbicides and slow decomposition
rate of plant residues as well as lack of enabling policy environment and governments’
support are among other major constraints. Another constraint to adoption of
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