Presentation by Aly Abousabaa from ICARDA at the Breeding Advantage event on the sidelines of COP23. More information about the event series: https://bit.ly/AgAdvantage

1. 1
A 4 Degrees Warmer Region:
Challenges and Opportunities in the Dry Areas
Aly Abousabaa
Director General
ICARDA
Science-based solutions for thriving, resilient livelihoods in the dry areas

2. Why Discuss a 4oC Warmer World?
• By 2100
- 40% chance of exceeding 4oC
- 10% chance of exceeding 5oC
(Sources: IEA, 2012; World Bank, 2014)
• 4oC warmer world could affect 70-80% of land
area in MENA
- rainfall could reduce as much as 60%
- population is projected to double by 2050
• Crop yields will reduce drastically
- wheat yield will reduce by 60% in Syria
- legume and maize will be most affected crops
(Source: Schilling et al., 2012)
2

3. 3
WANA Challenges to Sustainable Development
(Source: IPCC, 2001)

4. • High value and climate resilient crops
• Crop improvements for yield potential and for
abiotic and biotic stresses
• Integrated livestock/rangelands/crops
production systems
• Intensification and diversification of cropping
systems
• Protected agriculture
• Improvements in water availability and
management; grey water use
• Added value on dairy products in marginal dry
areas
ICARDA Response to a 4 Degree-Warmer Region

5. Important: Non-Tropical Dryland Agrobiodiversity

6. Total taxa
Perennial
Cross-pollinated
865
> 100
> 130
% unique accessions 45
% landraces and native
species
65-85
% characterized 78
% safe duplicated 98
% stored in Svalbard 80
Number of Rhizobium
strains
1380
ICARDA’s Germplasm Collection in Numbers
Crop No of
accs.
Crop No of
accs.
Barley 30,201 Pisum spp. 6,121
Bread wheat 14,681 Trifolium spp. 5,883
Durum wheat 20,526 Vicia spp. 6,388
Primitive wheat 1,022 Faba bean 10,034
Aegilops spp. 4,843 Chickpea 15,195
Wild Triticum 2,079 Lentil 13,907
Wild Hordeum 2,359 Wild Cicer 547
Not mandate cereals 179 Wild Lens 605
Lathyrus spp. 4,289 Range & Pasture 7,358
Medicago annual 9,120 Others 50
Total 155,387
Crop
genepool
Global
Ranking
% acc.
globally
Barley 2nd 18
Wheat 3rd 11
Chickpea 2nd 15
Faba bean 1st 48
Lentil 1st 51
Lathyrus 1st 36
Medicago 1st 28
Pisum 2nd 15
Trifolium 2nd 11
Vicia 1st 13
Overall 2nd 5.6
(1) Based on GENESYS information
Total accessions: 3,631,898 in 482 institutions

7. 7
FIGS approach links adaptive traits, environments (and associated selection
pressures) with genebank accessions (e.g. landraces and crop wild relatives)
 ‘focuses in’ on those accessions most likely to possess trait specific
genetic variation.
0 50 100 150
0102030405060
Longitude
Latitude
Trait (disease score)Environnement FIGS subset
www.icarda.org/
Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy
If a dependency exits between environmental parameters and the emergence of
an adaptive traits within an in-situ population then we can use this relationship to
predict where adaptive traits are likely to occur elsewhere.

8. Pre-Breeding Activities
 Dr Patokar Chetan, recruited on May 2017 to coordinate activities
of GRS project on pre-breeding
 Fully operational Fluorescent Microscopy facility established
 Barley
 329 interspecific crosses
 172 F1 hybrids and 56 BC1F1
 Wheat
 133 interspecific crosses (focusing on Ae. bicornis)
 82 F1 hybrids and 73 BC1F1
 Grasspea (4 Lathyrus species)
 19 interspecific crosses
 11 F1 hybrids
 Consultancy of Dr Masanori Inagaki and Dr Haddouri Jamal
Morocco…
 Ms. Sawsan Tawkaz
 Grasspea (4 Lathyrus species)
 92 interspecific crosses using
embryorescue techniques
Lebanon…

9. 9
Farming with Alternative Pollinators (FAP)
Principle: attract wild pollinators via habitat improvement to reduce cost of farming, promote
biodiversity, and increase crop yield (i.e., reduce the distance between nests and fields)
A scalable approach to protect pollinators worldwide
• Increases income significantly
• Protects wild pollinators without rewarding scheme (as in USA and EU)
• Focuses on cross-sector policy instruments for pollinator protection, which can be
adopted even by Low Income Countries
ICARDA is the only CG center working on pollinator protection

10. One Global Wheat Program
Yield
Heat
Drought
YR, LR
FHS, Sep
YR
Blast
Multiple Disease
Resistance
Heat
Drought
H-Fly
LR-DW
Yield
Ug 99
Rust
Septoria
Sept DW
Yield
WW Heat Drought
Rusts
Yield (IN+PK)
Heat Dry (IN)
Heat Humid (BD)
Drought (IN)
FHS
Yield
Heat
• Operational
• Building up
• Planned
10
Field-based phenotyping network

11. 11
Support to Agricultural Research for Africa: More Wheat for Africa
Target: 12 countries
3 hubs and 9 partner countries
Agro-ecologies: 2 main types
• Heat prone (lowlands)
• Disease prone (highlands)
Impact:
• 50 new varieties released
• 4-7t ha-1 2-3 t ha-1
• Up to 400,000 ha increase in wheat surface
• Up to 2 Mt production increase

12. 12
• To facilitate mechanized farming of lentil
• Evaluated 150 elite lines for erect, tall, high first pod bearing node
• 50 elite lines amenable to machine harvest identified
For a major breakthrough in productivity, revisiting plant architecture
Machine harvestable lentil Tall type High-vigor type All pods far from the ground
Lentil- herbicide tolerance
Imazethapyr Metribuzin

13. Short-Duration Lentils for Rice Fallow in South Asia
• Intensification of cereal based CS by inclusion of
pulses as catch crop
• Diversification of cereal based CS by replacement
• Introduction in Rice-fallows in South Asia
• New niches such as spring planted crop
• Market opportunities

14. 14
Malt-barley demonstration in Ethiopia
Barley Research Focus
• Hulled & Naked Barley
• Feed, food and malting, dual purpose
• Resistance to abiotic stresses
- Drought
- Cold/Heat
- Salinity
• Resistance to biotic stresses
- Rusts (Stripe and leaf)
- Foliar blights (NB, SB, Scald, SFNB)
- Powdery Mildew
- Aphid
Breeding trials in Marchouch, Morocco

15. In Northern Africa barley is commonly used for human consumption, especially in
rural and marginal areas
• Line 2Ab09-S06F084-5 identified for very high β-Glucan (15.9%)
• High Fe (54.8 ppm), Zn (37.9 ppm), and β-Glucan (>8%) varieties ‘Chifaa’ and
Assiya released in 2016 in Morocco.
Food barley for North Africa: β-Glucan and micronutrients++
Flattened barley Barley grit Barley flour
15

16. Malt is used for alcoholic and non-alcoholic products, and
it receives a premium price.
Cultivation of high-input malt barley can supply new
income to smallholder farmers
Ethiopia and India have released 8 new malt-type varieties
of ICARDA origin
Poverty reduction via malt barley
Malt-testing equipment available at ICARDA
Malt-barley demonstration in Ethiopia
Non-alcoholic malt
Alcoholic malt
16

17. Varieties Released by Partners
17
• Past decade: 250 varieties
• 2013: first year of move out of
Aleppo was the best one
• To date: 19 releases
0
10
20
30
40
50
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Wheat Barley Faba bean Chick-pea Lentil Grass-pea
73
6025
42
48 2
Number of varieties released
Varieties released
by species

18. 18
Conclusions
1. Genetic variability (biotic and abiotic stress) exists in Centers of Diversity and Genebanks
2. Beneficial traits are being identified through FIGS and field-based phenotyping
3. Trait introgression is done through pre-breeding/breeding and testing in key locations
4. ICARDA continues to collect agrobiodiversity and to refine algorithms for FIGS
5. For Climate Change (higher temperatures) new traits need to be identified- introgressed

19. Thank you
Tel Hadya, Aleppo