The Arab countries account for more than 5 per cent of the world’s population, but less than 1 per cent of global water resources. And as a consequence of the phenomena associated with climate change, the region is facing an even greater water shortage. For 30 years now, IFAD and...

Afghanistan is a beautiful country with a rich history. Today it faces enormous challenges. Afghanistan’s terrain is mountainous, dry, and subject to extreme droughts and devastating floods. Decades of conflict coupled with abuse, overexploitation and mismanagement of its natural resources have decimated its forests, degraded its rangelands and wetlands, and...

Wheat, grown on more than 200 million hectares of land worldwide, is a source of food and livelihoods for over one billion people in developing countries. This important commodity has been greatly affected by recent soaring food prices. Wheat prices have doubled in the last year, largely as a result...

This paper draws on key recent IFAD documents, evaluations, studies and reviews andalso on workshop findings and discussions related to the Near East and North Africa(NENA) region. The IFAD documents and evaluations consulted are: (a) IFAD StrategicFramework 2007-2010; (b) the 2006 Near East and North Africa Division (PN)self-evaluation report on...

This study showed that indigenous and local community strategies of drought management are no longer effective in coping with drought and the action plans that have been launched by the governments to manage this climatic hazard are mostly crisis based programs that encourage the dependency of the producers on the...

Organic agriculture has managed to attract the attention of local governments and economic operators and also to find space in discussion platforms and official strategy papers (concluding statement of the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Agriculture, Venice 2003 and the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development, approved in 2005 as part of...

In the first part of this paper, the Concept of "Sustainable Agriculture" is presented and discussed. Then a holistic view of drylands is given, starting with the aridity definition, then the location of drylands around the world. Drylands climate, soils and population are also characterized. The second part of the...

A linear programming (LP) technique was adopted to determine the optimum combination of crops and livestock production on small mixed farms in a newly reclaimed area in Egypt. Three locations reflected the different types of producer; traditional farmers, early retirees, and university graduates. One LP model with two scenarios was...

Au Maroc, l'élevage connaît un regain d'intérêt et, à côté des grandes étables modernes, une intensification, tant chez les pasteurs que chez des petits spéculateurs villageois. L'intégration au marché généralisée n'implique un souci particulier d'amélioration de la qualité que pour une minorité. Des encouragements dans le sens de l'amélioration de...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of agricultural productivity growth for generating employment and alleviating poverty in Egypt. Specifically, it attempts to answer the following questions: How important is agriculture for income and employment generation in rural Egypt? What is the relationship between agricultural productivity and...

The pastoral system of Syria, like most of West Asia and North Africa, is under stress with growing sheep population and continuous degradation of the rangelands. While the research and development society is strongly promoting community rangeland management in a participative and collaborative way, it is essential to characterize and...

In their individual and joint efforts to address the problems of poverty, IFAD and its partner agencies in the NENA region are confronted by a large number of constraints, including:• The natural resource base in both quantity and quality, in particular, the prevalence ofdesert and semi-arid areas and the frequency...

This issue of Caravan describes some of ICARDA's work on climate change. It contains overviews of the key issues, and articles describing research in specific areas: for example, how genetic resources – landrace varieties, wild relatives, indigenous livestock breeds – can be used to make small-scale agriculture better adapted to...

The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (CIHEAM-IAMB) has initiated since 1999 data collection on the organic sector in the Mediterranean area. Since 2005 a separate chapter in « The World of Organic Agriculture » has been dedicated to the Mediterranean area, and IAMB has committed itself to supporting the global...

In semi-arid regions, where rainfall is scanty, many water management systems were developed to provide irrigation water for agricultural through the centuries ago. In many part of Iran, the water requirements of most crops are not fully met by precipitation. Whereas, rural communities mostly subsist on farming and animal husbandry....

Après plus de deux décennies de gestion étatique de la mise en valeur agricole dans les périmètres de la grande hydraulique, les agriculteurs sont de plus en plus sollicités pour se prendre en charge et inventer de nouveaux modes de coordination. Cela semble, a priori, ne pas se mettre en...

The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC) is a political, economic and social organization and a regional cooperation system among six Arab States of the Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In August 1989, IFAD...

This study is one of a series of IFAD/PN joint activities with the FAO/Investment Centre(FAO/IC) undertaken during 2006/2007. Its main objective is to provide IFAD and its partners with updated knowledge about the status of rural poverty in the NENA region to enhance their capacity to design and implement more...

Many of Jordan’s rural poor people live in extremely difficult conditions. This fact sheet briefly analyses the main constraints they face: limited access to alternative sources of income, limited opportunities to diversify their farming enterprises because of low rainfall, poor soil quality and the topography of the land that they...

 The fact sheet briefly analyses the root causes of poverty in the country.  More than two million rural people have been displaced by the Darfur conflict alone. In addition, erosion, loss of soil fertility and damage to watersheds are affecting resources. Agricultural productivity is decreasing as a result of a...