Ministerial Meeting to follow up on the "Project to Strengthen Food Security in Arab Countries"

The Arab Fund, in cooperation with ICARDA, hosted a meeting during the period 11-12/11/2014, at its headquarters in Kuwait. The meeting was attended by Arab Ministers of Agriculture in order to discuss the situation of the project to "Strengthen Food Security in Arab Countries", which is being funded by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Islamic Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID).

The project aims at increasing the wheat yields under all the production systems through the use of improved techniques, in comparison to the farmers' use of traditional methods. It is being implemented in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Syrian, Palestine, Iraq and Algeria.

During the meeting, ICARDA members presented the important results and achievement that were accomplished during the first phase of the project. The results proved that wheat production can be increase by an average of 27% in the participating countries through the implementation of the project, along with the presence of efficient management, the use of improved varieties, and supplementary irrigation and production requirements.