ICARDA News

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE DRY AREAS
P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria
Phone: (963-21) 2213433, 2213477, 2225112, 2225012
Fax: (963-21) 2213490, 2225105; E-mail: ICARDA@CGIAR.ORG
Website: www.icarda.cgiar.org
16 December 2004
For more information contact:
Surendra Varma (s.varma@CGIAR.ORG)
Syrian Minister of Agriculture Opens the ICARDA/Syria
Collaborative Program Meeting
H.E. Dr Adel Safar (left), Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, and Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, Director General of ICARDA, addressed the participants at the opening session.
H.E. Dr Adel Safar, Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, inaugurated the 19th ICARDA/Syria Collaborative Program Meeting at Tel Hadya on 25 November 2004. In his inaugural address, H.E. Dr Safar said he considered the meeting to be an important annual event, since it brings together national and ICARDA researchers to review the progress of their joint work and develop future plans for research, technology transfer and capacity building to improve agricultural production in Syria. Acknowledging the role of ICARDA in promoting agricultural research in Syria, he said that the 27 years since the inception of the Center have been marked with important achievements that have helped the agricultural sector in the country and the region.

Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, ICARDA Director General, welcomed H.E. the Minister; Dr Nabi Mohammad, Deputy Minister; Dr Farouk Fares, Director General, ACSAD; Dr Majd Jamal, DG, GCSAR, and all other participants. In the context of ICARDA’s mandate and mission, the DG briefed the meeting on the challenges of agriculture in the dry areas, including water scarcity, land degradation, climate
A view of the participants at the meeting.
change and globalization. He highlighted ICARDA's strategy for meeting those challenges, and briefed the participants on the new research portfolio of the Center, built on six mega-projects, that will come into effect from 1 January 2005. The DG said that genetic diversity provides the building blocks for crop improvement, and ICARDA currently holds more than 130,000 accessions of wild and cultivated crop species in its genebank. The number of the acessions continues to grow every year. To accommodate the new collections, the genebank of the Center is being expanded.

The DG also highlighted ICARDA’s role in human resource development. More than 2400 colleagues from the Syrian national program have to date benefited from the Center’s training programs, and 122 from the graduate (MSc and PhD) training programs, he said.

Prof. Dr Beltagy stressed that the economic returns from investment in agriculture are the highest among all investments, giving the example of wheat in Syria which provides an annual return of US$ 500 million.

The Coordinator of the Collaborative Program, Dr Ahmed El-Ahmed, presented the objectives and aspirations of the program. He presented an overview of the on-going work in crop improvement, natural resource management, and human resource development. The participants from various Syrian institutions also made presentations of their joint work, and held discussions on developing the work plans for the next cropping season.

In his closing remarks, Prof. El-Beltagy said that the meeting was the culmination of the institutional work of researchers and farmers in different agroecological zones in Syria, and reiterated that ICARDA's achievements were due to the active participation of its national partners. It was the foresight of the late President Hafiz Al-Assad ICARDA was established Syria. Continuing the tradition of recognizing the value of research in the development of agriculture, President Dr Bashar Al-Assad made the progressive move of Syria joining the CGIAR and continues to provide strong support to ICARDA. ICARDA is greatly indebted to the President of Syria and his government for this.

About ICARDA: Established in 1977, ICARDA (www.icarda.cgiar.org) serves the entire developing world for the improvement of barley, lentil, and faba bean; and dry-area developing countries for the on-farm management of water, improvement of nutrition and productivity of small ruminants (sheep and goats), and rehabilitation and management of rangelands. In the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, ICARDA is responsible for the improvement of durum and bread wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes and farming systems; and for the protection and enhancement of the natural resource base of water, land, and biodiversity.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org) is a strategic alliance of 62 members and 16 Future Harvest Centers that mobilizes cutting-edge science to promote sustainable development by reducing hunger and poverty, improving human nutrition and health, and protecting the environment.
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