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research and science — along with indigenous knowledge

— can offer technically viable and economically feasibe long-

term solutions to combat desertification in the drylands while

enhancing economic growth, alleviating poverty and using

natural resources sustainably. Examples of such accomplish-

ments abound.

ICARDA’s most successful ‘science for impact’ experi-

ences have relied on using holistic integrated human and

agrosystems approaches. Such integrated approaches

produce robust bodies of new knowledge, technologies and

practices synthesized from three main research and prac-

tice domains, namely natural resource management; crop

and livestock genetic improvement; and socioeconomics,

policy and institutions. Through their integration, ICARDA

and its partners in national programmes are tackling the

complexity of the challenges on the ground and achiev-

ing large-scale impact, particularly when this integrated

agrosystems approach is tailored to the different agro-

ecological zones in the drylands with different agricultral

livelihood systems such as pastoral/agropastoral, rain-

fed, tree-based and irrigated production systems. Using

integrated agrosystems approaches also requires the collab-

oration of various stakeholders including multidisciplinary

teams of researchers, farming communities, pastoralists,

policymakers, civil societies and private and public sector

actors. Below, we have shared two examples where such

an approach has been particularly successful at ICARDA.

Salt-affected soils in Iraq

In 2013/14, biophysical and social scientists from

ICARDA, together with scientists from the Iraqi Ministry

of Agriculture and the Ministry of Agriculture and Water

Resources of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Government,

adopted an integrated approach to combat land and

water degradation caused by salinity. The project, which

aimed to improve agricultural productivity and liveli-

hoods in Iraq, was funded by the Australian Centre for

International Agricultural Research, AusAID and the Italian

Government. It followed two complementary approaches

for adaptation, namely managing salinity (such as leach-

ing salts added with irrigation water by drainage and

other means) and living with salinity (such as planting

halophytes and salt-tolerant plants). The collaborative

research focused on saline water management; salt-affected

soil and water management; and plant management and

adaptation of agricultural production systems to salinity.

Multidisciplinary teams of scientists worked side-by-side

with smallholder farmers to test the impact of soil salinity

and water management as well as the management of crop

adaptation to salinity. Through a combination of interven-

tions such as regional irrigation and drainage management;

reclamation; salt extraction; salinity prevention and shift-

ing agriculture systems to grazing; biosaline agriculture

and agroforestry at watershed; irrigation district and field

scales, agricultural productivity in salt-affected soils had

improved significantly by 2014, compared to 1984 before

any salinity reclamation efforts were implemented.

Parallel to these efforts, the project also researched fodder

species that thrive despite salinity and drought stresses and

are palatable to the livestock. Various fodder species were

tested by the local communities of Iraq’s rangelands. A pitter

seeder was developed by ICARDA scientists to make a series

Landsat satellite images of pre- and post-salinity reclamation in Dujaila, Iraq, showing significant

improvement in agricultural productivity by 2014

Source: ICARDA/NASA

Pre-salinity reclamation period

(April 1984)

Post salinity reclamation period

(April 2014)

Active or healthy farmlands

Saline or abandoned croplands

iving

and