The world's dry areas are home to some one billion people. Life has always been a challenge in these areas, because of harsh agroclimatic conditions full of uncertainties about the amount and distribution of rainfall, poor soil conditions, extremes of temperature, and the threats of drought. The crops in dry areas also face complex challenges posed by insect pests and disease. The problems have been further compounded by the serious disturbance in the balance between man and his ecosystems. Rising human populations are putting increased pressure on the fragile natural resource base; and sheep and goat herds are removing natural vegetation faster than it can replenish. Farmers are responding to these challenges by pushing their barley crops into rangelands to produce food and feed. In the dry areas, barley is gold.

Faced with this dilemma of rising need and diminishing resources, the Mashreq/Maghreb Project of ICARDA was begun in 1995 to promote sustainable, integrated crop-livestock production in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia. Farmers' fields and flocks were the sites and subject of adaptive research, and the resulting technologies were transferred. Policy and property rights were studied; sector and community models were developed; and socioeconomic aspects of adoption and impact were investigated.

In the second phase of the Project, begun in 1998, technology transfer was accelerated through community-level testing of technologies. At the same time, technologies moved between the cooperating countries, facilitated by a regional network established by the Mashreq/Maghreb Project.

This document gives an overview of the Project and summarizes the highlights of results to date.

On behalf of ICARDA, I would like to thank the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for their financial support to the Project.

Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy
Director General, ICARDA

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