Those who have found a calling in agricultural research and
development learn to be patient. A new variety can take years to
develop; a new technology might take just as long to become
accepted by farmers. Along the way, agriculturists can take
encouragement from improvements they see in the lives of the people they work with, and sometimes, friendships bloom in the desert.

n a chilly, sunny day in late winter 1986, we made our first visit to the northwest coast of Egypt. We were a small team of ICARDA scientists and a national expert exploring the area as part of a regional study to assess the potential of water harvesting and supplemental irrigation systems. The team comprised Dr Eugene Perrier, water management expert, and the authors of this article. Dr Perrier led ICARDA's water management project for five years before retiring from the Center in 1990. The authors were fortunate enough to be involved in the Matrouh Resource Management Project (MRMP), enjoying the most productive and challenging times of their professional lives. In the early 1990s, a few years after this first visit, Dr Naggar contributed to the preparation of MRMP, which began in 1994. He was later appointed the project's deputy director general. In 1996, ICARDA was contracted to implement the project, and Dr Salkini was appointed resident coordinator of technical assistance.
      On that late-winter day in 1986, we also made our first contact with Hajji Idreis and Hajji Hmeida, a meeting that would later develop into close friendship. Before telling the story of this scientist-Bedouin friendship, we would like to briefly introduce these two farmer entrepreneurs and the challenging land in which they live.

   The Mediterranean coastal zone is semi-desert extending more than 500 km between Alexandria in the east and the Libyan border in the west. Until a few decades ago the region was occupied by Bedouin pastoralists who lived exclusively off livestock grazing. Except for the gorgeous sea and sand, we caught sight of nothing on that first visit but a few scattered settlements, a poor plantation of figs and olives, small flocks of sheep and goats grazing, and a few camels here and there roaming vast stretches of barren land. Development efforts by the Egyptian government, supported by the international community, have, however, led to the settlement of most of the Bedouins, and the once dominant pastoral grazing system has evolved into sedentary agriculture.

      The Bedouins were first semi-settled along the wadis (seasonal stream and river beds) and land depressions, where they were encouraged to cultivate barley for food and feed. They were then settled more permanently following the planting of fig and olive trees on the wadi beds and the installation of water harvesting systems meant to regulate runoff. Despite good intentions, the subsequent pressure from humans and livestock disturbed the balance of the region's fragile ecosystems and led to rangeland degradation.

   Our new friends Hajji Idries and Hajji Hmeida were typical of Bedouin farmers on the northwest coast. Both have an extended family of 20-25 members, a small landholding, most of which is rangeland with a few acres sown every year to barley, a few acres of fig trees, a small flock of small ruminants (15-20 sheep and goats), and 20-25 chickens, mainly for domestic use. It's a farm resource base that barely allows for survival, and farmers face many risks that threaten sustainability and make development outputs and outcomes highly vulnerable.
      MRMP was designed to tackle the vulnerability and risk faced by the more than 19,000 rural households in the project area facing conditions similar to those of Hajji Idries and Hajji Hmeida. The project has implemented extensive research and development programs and has promoted technologies for soil and water conservation and use, and crop, rangeland, and livestock improvement. Research and technology transfer activities were conducted exclusively in farmers' fields. Our two farmer friends were members of a large network of pioneer farmers who participated in project implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. The project has provided technical, financial, and logistical support to help Bedouin communities tackle their problems, to adopt coping strategies and measures that ensure sustainable resource management and poverty alleviation (see Pilgrim's Progress in this issue).

   Monocropping of barley is common on the northwest coast, where crop diversity is constrained by physical and economic factors. The vagaries of the climate, low and erratic rainfall in particular, account for most of the risk faced by farmers. Farm production can suffer even in years of relatively high rainfall, if the rainfall is not properly distributed over the growing season. In years of good early rains, farmers sow barley on most of their cropland, saving the best plots for watermelon, a highly profitable summer crop. If the mid-to-late-season rains of spring don't come, farmers suffer multiple losses: poor barley production, no seed for the next year (necessitating a cash outlay), and no watermelon to sell.
      Local crop varieties and livestock breeds, though well adapted, have low genetic potential for productivity improvement. Pests are another major source of biophysical vulnerability. They have increased drastically in seriousness with increased development and agricultural intensity. Insects and diseases, combined with improper management practices, made hundreds of orchards unproductive, requiring substantial measures for their rejuvenation. Rodents are another threat to crops and earthen dikes.
      Resource scarcity and poverty add to the risk and vulnerability. Most households in the project area live below the poverty line, while the ultra poor must seek off-farm employment. Farm income is not only low, but uncertain: it might decline by one-third, two years out of five, and it might be negligible one out of every five years. The illiteracy rate is high and professional skills lacking. Economic opportunities and employment are very limited. In successive years of drought, a good proportion of the population suffers dramatic hardship. Bedouin traditions and tribal solidarity have always stood against such threats, but traditional bonds have begun to loosen with the onset of development and the thrust toward modernization and individualism. The age-old concept of the Bedouin tribe as 'consolidated socioeconomic unit' is no longer valid.

   The first and most pressing problem for Hajji Hmeida and Hajji Idries, and most of their thousands of neighbors, relates to water scarcity and management. Hajji Hmeida and his extended family live on a piece of land at the foot of the 200-m-high Libyan plateau, at the tips of two wadis initiated high up on the plateau. The wadis join at what is the start of the landholding, forming a great wadi that runs many kilometers before melting into the sea. Annual rainfall is around 150 mm, not sufficient to grow crops, but enough to sustain fruit trees (more than 2.5 million fruit trees grow in the project area). The trouble is, the rain usually comes in a few heavy and often damaging winter storms. Rain accumulates in vast catchments on the plateau and flows down a 65-m ridge, generating violent torrents that bombard the wadi through Haj Hmeida's land. Thousands of farmers face a similar problem. Hajji Idries has a water problem of a different kind. His water problem lasts year-round, because the winter runoff barely reaches his farm located near the tail end of another watershed with different physical and geo-hydrological features.
    A team of ICARDA scientists and MRMP specialists visited Hajji Hmeida's farm after a damaging rainstorm in 1997. "This is incredible," was the first comment heard, as the team inspected the old cement and stone dike shattered into pieces, the deep grooves carved in the wadi bed, the small fig trees uprooted and washed away, and the very old and strong trees suffocated by sediment up to the top terminals. How could a single rainstorm cause such damage, in a desert?

    Runoff is extremely useful and needed, but it must be controlled and regulated. On the spot, the project engineers and ICARDA consultants assessed the damage and its causes. A development plan for the watershed was set, based on analysis of long-term rainfall data, a topographic survey, assessment of hydrology and land use, and socioeconomic analysis. The plan included the vast catchment area on the plateau, and many kilometers of wadi, all the way downstream to the coast. Hajji Hmeida and other beneficiaries in the local community helped build a strong concrete and stone weir and a series of dry-stone dikes across the wadi. The old earthen dikes were reformed, compacted, and strengthened with concrete spillways. Since then, neither Hajji Hmeida nor the other farmers in the watershed have suffered damaging torrents.
    Very little was known about the geo-hydrology, soils, plant requirements, and other characteristics on the northwest coast.

So, the weir on Hajji Hmeida's land was fitted with an automated rain gauge and other devices to measure precipitation and runoff volume and velocity. An adaptive, on-farm research site was also established nearby to investigate runoff coefficients for soils of different types, structures, slopes, and vegetative cover. Different types and specifications of micro water harvesting systems were also investigated.

    The second major problem was lack of clean water for domestic use and livestock. The women and boys of the families were used to collecting water harvested and stored in excavated cisterns a couple of miles away on a neighbor's property.

      The project has since given Hajji Idries and Hajji Hmeida 300-m3 capacity cisterns. The collected water takes care of their household and livestock needs, and helps the families maintain small gardens, which even produce a surplus from time to time. MRMP has supported the installation of more than 8000 cisterns, amounting to a storage capacity of more than 1.75 million m3. Water handling is mostly the task of Bedouin women. To save them time and to reduce water losses, the project provided the two farmers (and about 1000 other households) with in-kind loans to purchase pumps. And, to make the most of seasonal runoff, a research program was initiated to test the possibility of frequent emptying and refilling of cisterns.

   The third major problem for Hajji Hmeida and more than 16,000 crop producers was the monocropping of barley, and the low and highly fluctuating yields. The average yield was less than 700 kg/ha. In two out of 10 years the average yield might exceed 1200 kg/ha, but in four out of 10 years there might be no grain yield at all, and the crop would be grazed green by livestock. Yields were not only low and fluctuating, but also declining, most likely due to the effects of monocropping, although Hajji Hmeida and most of the other farmers blamed it on successive droughts.
       With technical assistance from ICARDA and effective participation of local communities, MRMP tackled these problems by developing a simple technological package for improved barley production. The package was developed and tested on farmers' fields, in a range of biophysical and socioeconomic conditions, and then disseminated to farmers.

The package consists of a new barley variety ('Giza 126') developed by the ICARDA-Egypt cooperative research program, a small increase in seed rate (70 kg/ha instead of the farmer practice of less than 58 kg/ha), a small quantity of phosphorus fertilizer (23-35 kg P/ha), and double-cross plowing instead of the typical single seed-covering cultivation. The package, in whole or in part, was adopted by more than 40% of the 16,000 barley producers. Hajji Idries reported a yield increase of more than 80% for grain and more than 100% for straw.
       Barley-legume rotations were tested as an alternative to barley monocropping. The best and most farmer-accepted rotation was the barley-local vetch (Vicia sativa). Within three years of the tests and dissemination, 20% of barley producers adopted this rotation, and more farmers are expected to take it up. Most adopters reported a yield increase, in terms of feed units, of more than 50%, but the increase on the research and demonstration plot on Hajji Hmeida's farm amounted to more than 80%. Barley-vetch mixtures were also tested for their ability to increase feed units per hectare and improve the barley cropping system. The best seed mixture comprised 70% barley and 30% local vetch, with the latter sown only in the first year as it regenerates itself thereafter. So far, 20% of farmers have adopted the mixture. They report a yield increase of around 50%, but Hajji Idries enjoyed a yield increase of more than 100%.

      Interplanting fodder shrubs in barley fields was also tested as a means to increase feed production and improve the cropping system. The optimum spacing of Atriplex (saltbush) was 10-15 m between shrub rows and 3-5 m between shrubs in the row. The technology of interplanting has already been adopted by about 20% of the barley producers in the project area. The technology has contributed substantially to improved barley productivity and forage production, reported Hajji Idries, who at first doubted the value of interplanting with Atriplex. He wasn't alone. It was only after a study tour to ICARDA in Aleppo and a visit to farmers on the Syrian steppe that Hajji Idries and other pioneer farmers became convinced.
     
The fourth major problem for our Bedouin friends (and 75% of households in the project area) was related to fruit and vegetable production, which suffered from improper traditional practices of orchard establishment and management. This was reflected in severe deterioration of hundreds of olive and fig orchards, and low output from the productive orchards. Orchard productivity also fluctuates with rainfall. In years of good rainfall, olive yield can be 40-50% higher than in years of normal rainfall, and can be lower than normal by the same percent range in years of low rainfall. Horticulture also lacked diversity. Figs covered more than 70% of orchard area, olives about 25%, and grapes, some almonds, and pomegranates accounted for most of the rest. Of the vegetables, watermelon was the sole vegetable grown by about 35% of farmers, with some other species grown on very small plots, mainly for domestic use.

      Hajji Idries reported a yield increase of more than 100% in his fig orchard following adoption of the recommended technologies of improved pruning and harvesting, coupled with modest supplementary irrigation, organic fertilization, and pest control. He expects to treble income from fig production because of these improvements, and by planting new varieties suitable for drying. Hajji Idries, using the savings gained from crop improvement, especially from seed production, has installed another cistern. He uses it to grow vegetables and provide supplementary irrigation for his orchard. "Thanks to God, and to the support of MRMP," our Bedouin friend whispered smiling, clasping his hands together to signal victorious accomplishment. "Now, I am not only self-sufficient in all vegetables, but I'm also gaining an additional monthly income of 300 Egyptian Pounds," he said. The sum is equivalent to the monthly salary of an agricultural laborer, or a minor public service officer.

   The fifth major problem that our friends helped to solve was the deteriorated rangelands and scarcity of natural feeds, reflected in the rising use of feed concentrates. Hajji Idries has participated in all project activities aimed at fodder production improvement. These have included diversified strategies and measures for range rehabilitation, such as fenced fodder shrub planting, shrub interplanting, barley-forage mixtures, reseeding with annuals and perennials, and protected and controlled grazing of natural ranges.
      On a shiny autumn day, after one season of range rehabilitation, we paid a visit to Hajji Idries. He and his eldest son joined us to inspect protected sites. About 30 threatened range species were observed, including those belonging to the following genera: Periploca, Panicum, Oryzopsis, Moricandia, Gymenocarpos, Salsola, Dactylis, Salvia, Plantago, Vicia, and Medicago. Some medicinal and herbal species were also revived, including Chamomile, Matricaria chamomilia; Harmal, Peganum harmal; El-Sheih, Artemisia judaica; Anise, Pimpinella anisum; Sweet basil, Ocimum basilicum; Marjoram, Marjorana hortensis; Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis; Thyme, Thymus capitatus; and Sage, Salvia officinalis. An excellent cover of vegetation protected the site.
      We inspected many fields of different farming and herding activities, and then we were led to the family residence. On the way we much enjoyed, as usual, the wisest and most knowledgeable conversation you could dream of. This Bedouin entrepreneur is not only an exceptionally talented, exceptionally industrious, and persistent producer, but also a mobile encyclopedia of inherited and accumulated indigenous knowledge. He was the best local, no-cost advisor the project had, highly honored and respected. Passing by old ruined premises, we approached a fancy, newly constructed, modern residence. Inside, it was well furnished, and on tabletops laid a variety of newspapers, magazines, and books. And in the backyard we were deeply impressed to find a seed 'workshop' where the family processed and packed seeds of indigenous range species.
      Everyone in the family helps collect from the farm's protected range area and from neighboring communal rangelands.

For some species they collect seeds from shattered pods. For other species they cut the productive parts of plants, set them aside for drying, then thresh, clean, sieve, and pack them. The eldest son, a bright chap in his late teens, was trained by the project in aspects of range plant identification, classification, collection timing and methods, and post-harvest handling. He was contracted for two years by another ICARDA-supported project, the Regional Initiative for Desertification Control, to collect and reproduce range seeds. MRMP has supported this household enterprise by buying all the seed produced. Seed of indigenous species is essential for the rehabilitation of rangeland, so it's a great help to have clean packed seeds ready to use.
       We finished off a generous and tasty Bedouin lunch with an extremely sweet cup of green tea, a Bedouin hospitality never to be escaped, and our enjoyable chat with Hajji Idries was drawing to a close. "How much do you usually get from this industry, Hajji Idries?
      " we asked hesitantly. "I won't tell you my old friends. I'm really afraid of a black eye," Hajji Idries said, nodding his head right and left. "However, I'll disclose a small secret for you and only for you my old friends. You certainly have noticed the difference between the old ruined shabby house and these new fancy buildings. This is the difference between Hajji Idries before and Hajji Idries after MRMP. And that is only part of it," he said, with a very broad smile that masked half of his pleasant and comforting face.
      We recalled the scene of years past, on that chilly sunny day in late-winter 1986. There was the gorgeous sea, the sand, and the scattered poor plantations of barley and fig. Today, we can't help but marvel at what is possible if people are given the right support to deal with their problems.
      "Praise to God almighty, and thanks to MRMP, thanks to ICARDA, and thanks to the World Bank," said Hajji Idries, on our last visit to our friends on the northwest coast. "Now we and our families feel really secure. No more fear of the climate. No more serious worries about our future generations," he said. "And, no more fear of the damaging torrents," hollered Hajji Hmeida, laughing and waving goodbye as our car stumbled and bumped over the dirt road headed to the Matrouh highway, under the cover of deeply clouded sky, just about to give birth to one of the great rainstorms of the northwest coast.