The year of 2008 marked the beginning of a new phase at ICARDA: the full implementation of the Center's Strategic Plan 2007-2016, and a renewed commitment to addressing the global challenges of food security, poverty alleviation and climate change in the dry areas. It was also a year of adversity, both locally and globally. At ICARDA's main research station in Syria, the 2007/2008 cropping season experienced drought combined with wide variations in temperature, falling to -12°C in winter and rising to 37°C in the early spring.

Includes landlord-tenant relations, the Kibaale land question, pastoralists, gazetted land, IDPs and returnees in Northern Uganda, conflicts about refugee resettlement camps, the impact of oil discoveries, deficits in dispute resolution and land administration, corruption, ignorance of the law.

This 2010-12 MTP presents relatively few adjustments to research plans from the previous MTP. One main cross-cutting change in the ILRI research program in 2010 will be to accelerate efforts to align research activities to the livestock development challenges presented. In preparation for that, ILRI is conducting a center-commissioned external review in 2009 looking at research into sustainable intensification of smallholder crop-livestock systems to provide a review of past activities and advice on this future focal area.

The study was carried out in Metema Woreda of Amhara National Regional State. The objectives of the study were to describe the goat production systems in the study area and to identify major constraints and opportunities of goat productivity; to evaluate the effect of supplementation with different protein sources on live weight gain of grazing goats under farmers management and to evaluate the economic feasibility of the feeding system under farmers condition.

Availability of major feed resources, cattle fattening practices and marketing system were studied to generate baseline information which can be used for future interventions to develop market oriented cattle fattening program within the integrated mixed crop-livestock system. The study was conducted using cross-sectional survey by interviewing a total of 153 cattle fattener households proportionally selected from four kebeles in Weina-Dega and two kebeles in Sub- Kolla agro-ecologies of Bure Woreda in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia.

Improving On-farm Agricultural Water Productivity in the Karkheh River Basin

(KRB) was a CPWF project that aimed at enhancement of agricultural water

productivity (WP) under irrigated and rainfed conditions in Karkheh River Basin. It

was launched in Iran through the partnership of ICARDA and the Iranian NARES

under the Agricultural Extension, Education, and Research Organization.

The project lasted for more than four years between 2004 and 2008. Whereas

capacity building was an important part of the agenda, PN8 was a participatory,

Transhumance, the seasonal movement of herds occurring between two points and following precise routes repeated each year, is practiced on a broad scale in the open field areas of Tigray (North Ethiopia). This article presents a characterization of the practice, factors that explain its magnitude, and recent changes. Eleven villages were selected randomly, semistructured interviews were conducted, and data on the sites were collected both in the field and from secondary sources.

The environment is the basic determinant of the nature and productivity of rangeland eco-systems. Physical environmental factors, which include climate, topography and soil, determine the potential of rangeland to support certain types and levels of land use. Within the limits set by this potential, the influence of fire and biological environmental factors (grazing, tree cutting and shifting cultivation) results in different types of vegetations and levels of productivity.

The study was conducted in Bure District of the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) with objectives of characterizing the milk production & marketing systems and evaluating the effect of feed supplementation on milk yield & milk composition of local cows. A single-visitmultiple- subject survey was used to collect data on milk production & marketing systems. A total of 181 milk households were individually interviewed.