International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas

The International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), a member of the CGIAR, supported by the CGIAR Fund, is a non-profit agricultural research for development institute that aims to improve the livelihoods of the resource-poor across the world’s dry areas.

ICARDA has been temporarily headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, since leaving Aleppo, Syria, in 2012. Support is provided by research centers and offices in Jordan, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Oman, Pakistan, Sudan, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Established in 1977, ICARDA’s origins lie in a 1973 study that highlighted the food security challenges faced by countries across the dry regions of the Near East and North Africa. ICARDA research activities include the development of new crop varieties, water harvesting, conservation agriculture, the diversification of production systems, integrated crop/rangeland/livestock production systems, and the empowerment of rural women.

Biodiversity and Integrated Gene Management: The Biodiversity and Integrated Gene Management Program works to conserve agricultural biodiversity in dry areas and to use these resources to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods through breeding. It covers durum and bread wheat, barley, chickpea, lentil, faba bean, grasspea, and forage and pasture crops. ICARDA scientists work on biodiversity conservation as well as crop improvement. Activities take both conventional and biotechnological approaches, and include integrated disease and pest management, and seed production and delivery systems to enhance the adoption of new varieties.

Integrated Water and Land Management: The Water and Land Management program aims to improve the management of scarce water resources, and to combat desertification and land degradation. ICARDA scientists develop technical, institutional, and policy options for improved water productivity in both rainfed and irrigated production systems; for sustainable, equitable, and economic use of all water sources; and for improved land management and drought mitigation. Research focuses on appropriate, effective technologies, such as supplemental irrigation and rainwater harvesting.

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