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 41 - 45 of 431Mid-term review inception report: Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale
This report is the results of the mid-term review for the EU-IFAD project "Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale" Project.
Extension circular for the double-up legumes for smallholder farmers in Malawi
Double up legumes is intercropping two legumes (in this case groundnut and pigeonpea) that have different growth habits and takes advantages of beneficial interactions of the two legumes on the same piece of land. Intercropping groundnut and pigeonpea using the correct spatial arrangement increase land productivity, provides more types of food and profits while conserving and sustaining the environment through enhancement of soil fertility.
A new pastoral code for Tunisia: Reversing degradation across the country’s critical rangelands
In response to the severe economic, social, and environmental costs of degradation across Tunisia’s rangelands, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) has worked with the General Directorate of Forestry (Direction Générale des Forêts, DGF) to draw up a new pastoral code. This code could facilitate a more sustainable governance regime that also delivers for pastoral communities. Inclusive and practical, the code also offers a framework for other countries experiencing degradation in rangeland areas.
Application of systematic monitoring and mapping techniques
Drylands cover over 40% of the earth's surface and support over 2 billion people, globally (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). In East Africa alone, over 250 million people depend on drylands for their livelihoods (De Leeuw et al., 2014) and in Kenya, 70% of the total land area is classified as arid- and semi-arid (Batjes, 2004). Over the last several decades, an increasing and more sedentary human population has resulted in more pressure on these lands, and an expansion of agricultural production into marginal dryland areas that were traditionally rangelands.
Modelling land-use decisions in production systems involving multiple crops and varieties
This paper argues and provides empirical evidence that trade-offs and/or complementarities are
inherent in technological options that shape the adoption of and land-use decisions in production
systems involving multiple crops in Ethiopia. By applying a fractional response model to a
nationally representative sample of 1 469 households, this paper found that, while there are tradeoffs
in the land-use decisions regarding barley and potatoes, there are complementarities in the