exists.
       Farmers' needs and constraints should form the template from which technological innovations are crafted. If this is to happen, there need to be systematic linkages between the various components of research and technology transfer. The M&M Project of ICARDA, which began in 1995, provides such linkages, encouraging national scientists to work with farmers and assisting collaboration between scientists and farmers across national boundaries. Coordinated by ICARDA in close collaboration with its sister Center, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), based in Washington, it was generously funded in Phase I by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Participating countries were Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria in the Mashreq, and Algeria,           

Libya, Morocco and Tunisia in the Maghreb.

      The initial focus has been on adaptive       research and technology transfer on barley and forages, rangelands, and small ruminants (sheep and goats) in the dry areas. There is another important component--research into property rights and government policies, and their effects on the way farmers adopt new technology to manage natural resources.
        In Algeria, the chief institutions collaborating with the M&M Project include the Haut Commissariat pour le Developpement de la Steppe (HCDS), which is concerned with the sustainable exploitation of the Algerian rangelands, and the Institut Technique des Grandes Cultures (ITGC). As in much of the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region, the rangeland                   

ecessity, it is said, is the mother of invention. In farming, a constraint leads to invention--or perhaps we should say innovation. Innovation need not mean the creation of something completely new. It can be the adaption of something that already