ICARDA annual report 2004

ICARDA Annual Report 2004
78
ized by ICARDA in collaboration
with the Ministry of Agriculture
and Fisheries of the UAE, the UAE
University, and the General
Secretariat of the GCC. More than
70 researchers from the six GCC
countries and international date
palm experts from ICARDA, Egypt,
Iran, Morocco, Sudan, Tunis, USA,
and Yemen participated.
Human resource development
A training course on protected agriculture
was organized in October
by APRP in collaboration with
Rumais Agricultural Research
Center in Oman. Five researchers
from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
were trained on vertical growing
systems. In addition, four Yemeni
researchers were trained in twomonth
courses on protected agriculture
in Qatar and Oman. Also, a
two-day training course on maintenance
and operation of seed technology
units was held by APRP in
collaboration with the Ministry of
Agriculture and Fisheries for one
Omani researcher at Dhaid in the
UAE, in September.
Highland Regional
Program
Highlands (> 800 masl) cover over
40% of the agricultural land in
Central and West Asia and North
Africa (CWANA), and are home to
the most disadvantaged sector of
the population in the region. The
harsh environment and poor accessibility,
to a great extent, explain
the neglect of these areas by national
and international research and
development organizations. Harsh
conditions promote outmigration
and land abandonment.
Subsistence is secured from
drought-tolerant, low-productivity
crops such as barley, as well as
fruit trees and vegetables, and from
transhumant flocks of small ruminants
that move to mountain pastures
in the summer. Much of the
agriculture is conducted on sloping
land and soil erosion is a major
problem, especially in areas that
have become degraded as a result
of overgrazing and other inappropriate
farming practices.
From its inception, ICARDA has
devoted an important proportion of
its resources to improving agricultural
productivity and maintaining
natural resources in the highlands,
initially in West Asia (Afghanistan,
Iran, Pakistan and Turkey) and
North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and
Tunisia), and subsequently in
Central Asia as well.
Highland Research Regional
Network
From its early days and until mid
2004, ICARDA managed its regional
highland activities through the
Highland Regional Program, that
included countries of North Africa,
West Asia, and CAC. Because those
countries fall within the geographic
mandate of other ICARDA
Regional Programs, it was decided
to address the problems of highland
agriculture within the framework
of a Highland Research
Regional Network (HRN). The goal
of HRN is to contribute to improving
the welfare of rural populations
in the highlands of CWANA
through the identification and
adoption of strategies and technologies
that ensure a sustainable
improvement of agricultural productivity
in those areas. ICARDA
project staff are located in Iran and
Afghanistan, while work in Turkey
is handled from the headquarters.
Afghanistan
ICARDA’s highland collaborative
research activities in Afghanistan
A smile of satisfaction after years of suffering:
A farmer in Parwan, Afghanistan
who participated in wheat demonstrations.
are managed by its Kabul-based
office, which coordinates the work
in six target provinces (Ghazni,
Helmand, Kabul, Kunduz,
Nangarhar and Parwan).
Additionally, the Kabul office coordinates
the activities of the Future
Harvest Consortium to Rebuild
Agriculture in Afghanistan, which
is a conglomerate of 18 organizations
from the world over. Besides,
it also provides technical and logistic
support to ICARDA’s program
on Research on Alternative
Livelihoods Fund (RALF), supported
by DFID, and the IDRC project
on Seed System Analysis.
Collaborative research
ICARDA scientists, along with their
counterparts in the Ministry of
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry
and Food (MAAHF) and NARS in
Afghanistan have worked to
rebuild the destroyed agriculture,
through funding from USAID
(Rebuilding Agricultural Market
Program-RAMP), International
Development Research Centre
(IDRC), Organization of Oil
Producing and Exporting Countries
(OPEC), and ICARDA’s own funds.
Collaborative projects within
ICARDA-Afghanistan program