First meeting of the NEPAD/NABNet wheat initiative
Project title:
“ Comprehensive integrated management program to sustain wheat tolerance to environmental stresses ”
16-18 June 2008, Cairo, Egypt
Background
Following the call for proposals disseminated at December 2007 by NEPAD/NABNet secretariat, many team leaders from North african countries have presented joint regional contributions in various areas of priority for research and development announced in the call. The wheat was not initially included in the call however based of a request from Dr Mohamed CHERIF and Salah REZGUI from INAT Tunis to include this important crop the NEPAD/NABNet Director after agreement from NEPAD/OST asked them to apply. The proposal as fellowships has been submitted by Dr Salah REZGUI on behalf of Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccoan teams in collaboration with ICARDA. Later on and after consultation with NEPAD based on the note of Dr REZGUI it was agreed to allow preparation of a Regional proposal, and preliminary contributions came from Algeria and Tunisia. After further consultations and contacts Four PIs have been considered for following up with this initiave.
It can be mentioned in particular that the institutions to which belong the involved teams are pioneers in the region in terms of encouraging research and strenghtening use of biotechnology for development purpose in the area of crop improvement especially in cereals. These institutions are holding programs dealing with the theme developed in the project, and the teams have an adequate skill and international notability and are developping research programs involving young researchers. Moreover the teams have when considered together, the adequate background relating to the subject and the complementary skill and facilities to deal with wheat research and related applied aspects.
Based on that a meeting gathering the team leaders in this initiative, was agreed by NEPAD and has been scheduled to follow up with the submitted proposal and to initiate a regional research process.
Venue and participants
The meeting was held in NRC and AGERI, Cairo, Egypt during three days: 16 th–18 th June 2008.
In NRC, Dr Osama El-Shabrawy NRC representative as contact with NEPAD welcomed the participants and encouraged their initiative and promised support to the project
IN AGERI Dr Ahmad BAHIELDIN Director of the institute have met with the participants and discussed deeply with them the keys for success of the initiative and promised support to their project
The team leaders who attended this meeting are as follows:
Dr Salah REZGUI: Institut National des Sciences Agronomiques de Tunis, Tunis, tunisie.
Dr Nadia YKHLEF: Université Mentouri,Constantine, Algérie
Dr Mohamed Sarwat ABDEL-HADY : National Research Center, Giza, Egypt
Dr Hala EISSA: AGERI/Agriculture Research Center, Cairo , Egypt
To further contact between NEPAD/NABNet initiatives, the meeting was attended in the presentation session by PIs namely Dr Mahmoud SAKER from Barley initiative, Dr Yehia GAD from Type 2 Diabetes initiative and Dr Magda SABBOUR from Bioinsecticides Initiative.
LOGISTICS:
Participants from outside Egypte received their tickets and 80 US$/day from NEPAD/NABNet. Other complementary expenses to the meeting came also from NABNet.
Agenda of the meeting
Monday June 16th 08, NRC
Scientific presentations of the wheat programs developed by the participants in their institutions and suggestions for their involvement into the NEPAD/NABNet wheat initiative
Tuesday June 17th08, AGERI
Discussion about the scientific project and the workplan
Wednesday June 18th , NRC
Workplan-suite, Contracting , links and strategy for a long term wheat Project for north Africa
Background of the NEPAD/NABNet Wheat teams and their expectation/contribution from/to the project
Salah REZGUI: He presented an overview about wheat yield and production in Tunisia. He presented the activities his Lab is developing in INAT and dealing with wheat as a valuable component of the agronomic system. He summarised the major results and capacity of his Lab and emphasized on his input to this project in management of septoria, genetic characterisation of the septoria and genes of tolerance in targeted germplasm. He presented also the facilities available to him for field trials and collabration with ICARDA and other international partners.
Nadia YKHLEF : She presented the activities her Lab is developing in Mentoury Univ, dealing with physiological approach and germplasm evalutation. She finds that the skill of her group can be useful to the establish a coherent north african team for exploring the whealth of wheat germplam. The facilities available to her a adequate to initiate a tissue culture approach.
Hala EISSA: She presented the activities her Lab is developing in the area of creating transgenic cultivars, she handeled with succes various crops and is ready to work with the north african team for preparing a system genetic transformation of wheat that can be used later one.
Sarwat ABDEL-HADY: He reviewed the major constraints in Egypt and the progress so far achieved for developing adequate cultivars. He presented the activity his lab is developing in breeding as well as prediction for salt and drought tolerance based on tissue culture approach. He will contribute to the evaluation of nutritional quality. He has facilities at field and will contribute in multi local trials.
Along the discussions, the four leaders with their own skill and based on the collaborations available to them from their institutions (physiologists, breeders, geneticists, pathologists, molecular biologists…) seemed to lead coherent groups and have access to the universities through their young students and direct collaborators. They also have a good notability which promises for expanding the project in its development phase. The plethora of technologies available to the teams and their skill make it conceivable that they will follow up friendly throughout the region with the project.
The wheat north african group can play at the regional level an important role for showing to the policy makers and to the north african society the ability to take place for a north african cereal group. The next months will be crucials to demonstrate if the group can really assume a leadership in this field. The team leaders seemed to have a long experience of working in wide consortia, and are all involved in international collaboration programs. They expressed their adhesion to NEPAD principles including building on prior knowledge rather than creating from scratch, adding value to their Ongoing national programs rather than launching a new project. They agree on sharing costs and benefits among them and with NEPAD based on the fact that they own their initiative. They agree on sharing their program with stakeholders of the region and develop efforts for expanding it to Africa and use their progress for higher level involvment in International initiatives.
Design of the project
The participants discussed based on the proposed notes at conceptual and implementing levels. The project is conceived as a two phases project. The phase 1 is supported from CIDA/NEPAD Fund to acquire consumables and/or spearparts and/or allocating fellowships for students. This fund will support also meetings of the team leaders to follow up with the project's progress and developing link in NABNet. This phase 1 corresponds to an initiating phase whereas the phase 2 will be a development phase and depend on the support from structures and institutions in north africa and internationally.
Below is presented a general outline of the design of the Phase 1. A comprehensive document of the proposal will be presented by the group based on the discussions of the meeting at 25th June the latest together with a progress report covering the Ongoing activities. The four team leaders as the scientific committee of the project will interact to achieve these tasks and Dr Salah REZGUI will manage this common effort. They agreed also to prepare a comprehensive a project draft covering for the long term second phase of the project (2010-2014), by the 15th July the latest and Dr REZGUI who is working on it will benefit from the other PIs to accomplish this task.
The goal, objectives an expected outcomes agrred are as follows
Major Goal ):
Development of an integral approach and relevant methodologies for sustainability of wheat culture in North Africa under its specific biotic and abiotic environmental constraints. To the long term this will improve the wheat regional production and reduce importation.
General Objectives :
*Identification from the available germplasm of biochemical, physiological and agronomic traits valuable for assessing tolerance/resitance to septoria and tolerance to drought and salt
* Genetic improvement of existing germplasm through, MAS and production of newly transgenic plants.
Expected outcomes:
-New knowledge available to the scientific communities
-Tools and markers availed to characterisation
-Valuable collection available with useful features
-Implementation of an integrated management strategy for sustainability of wheat cultivation and production
-Better humain health status reached.
-Economic and social improvements achieved
Extending and expanding the wheat initiative
The group agreed to do its best to produce results and to generate impact during 2008 and 2009. During this period other teams in the region will be harnessed for input and will be involved in the project to be prepared during this time frame and be implemented later during the phase 2 that will be initiated at 2010. To this end the group will pursue its international effort for valorising this NEPAD initiative and will develop various complementary links. On the other side an effort will be made to meet the need of the development sector by inter alea initiating some filed trials in the region. These efforts are destined also to strenghten the project so it can be marketed by NEPAD with potential sponsors nationally and internationally, and used as a plateform for involving the team in skilled consortia seeking high level international collaborative projects
Follow-up
Based on the discussions of the various items of the meeting agenda and taking into account the comprehensive discussion contracts and MTA will be finalised and signed and seeds exchanged. It is expected that the first fund transfer to the participants will be done before the end of July.
Mohamed Elarbi Aouani 19 June 08
NEPAD/NABNet Director
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