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Arabian Peninsula Regional Program

The Arabian Peninsula Regional Program (APRP) supports ICARDA’s collaboration with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen. Areas of collaborative research include water resource management, forage and rangeland management, and protected agriculture. The program is currently supported by AFESD, IFAD and the OPEC Fund for International Development.

The program made excellent progress in producing seed of indigenous forages, and in identifying agronomic practices to maximize seed production in the harsh environments of the region. The recently established seed technology unit was equipped with appropriate seed scarifying and cleaning equipment and unit will serve both research and training needs.

ICARDA and AGERI (Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute, Egypt) signed a twinning areement in 2001 for collaboratrive research. TAC Chair, Dr Emil Q. Javier (right, front), during the course of TAC meeting held at ICARDA, visited AGERI. Here he is seen with Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy (right, back), ICARDA DG; Prof. Dr Saad Nassar (left, back), President of the Agricultural Research Center, Egypt; and Dr Magdi Madkour, Director General of AGERI.

APRP makes full use of information technology and launched its own web pages , which can be accessed through the ICARDA website (www.icarda.cgiar.org) . This initiative seeks to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, information, and expertise, both regionally and internationally. The program has initiated a weather information system with a network of automated weather stations continuously collecting data and making it available via the Internet. An initial version of an expert system on protected agricultural production of vegetables has been completed. An expert system for crop protection in cucumber is under development. Development of the information system for irrigation and fertigation of greenhouse crops is also underway. Information on expert systems will eventually be integrated with the weather information network and will be available online.

Terrace farming in Yemen is highly dependent on rainfall and harvesting of water from the watersheds around the terraces. APRP is the coordinator of a new research project to introduce cultivation of cash crops in greenhouses in the mountain terraces of Yemen. Elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, researchers have developed appropriate solarization techniques, and tested them in research stations and on private farms with excellent results to tackle the problem of soil-borne
diseases in protected agriculture.

The regional technical coordination meeting for Phase II of the APRP was held in Saudi Arabia and attended by 29 scientists. The agenda focused on rangeland seed production and irrigated forages. Prior to the meeting, a traveling workshop gave the participants a chance to see seed production activities and field research on rangelands in the northern part of the country.

APRP worked with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of the UAE to organize a symposium on “Prospects of Saline Agriculture in the GCC Countries” in March. An expert consultation meeting was also held on “Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources” in the Sultanate of Oman.

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