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Home Technical Summary What the project is about Relevance Ecological Agriculture in the Middle East Cooperation Working together in a troubled region Sustainability Water-saving crops of the future Technical Objectives See the plants Evaluation How the plants are doing Project Map See the sites Format Where and how Current Status Project timeline Buy Dr. Elaine Solowey's latest book  "Small Steps Towards Abundance: Crops for a More Sustainable Agriculture" on Amazon.com, or from the publisher. |
The Evaluation Process After the germplasm is introduced, planted out, and evaluated as to hardiness in the chosen sites, a long process will begin, which will separate the crop candidates which will adapt and be adopted into the agricultural systems of the areas, from those which might have looked equally promising but will be rejected. Some of the dependent variables in the evaluation process are growth rates, water needs, fertilizer needs, work hours required to care for the crops, damage/disease, adaptability/invasiveness, and usefulness/acceptance at a local level. Later, all the costs and variables must be measured against the crop's usefulness/benefits, and decisions made regarding the sustainable/commercial uses of the new crop. These choices and evaluations will be made ultimately by the local growers and authorities, but the choice will have been made possible by the introduction of the new germplasm into an area where few conventional crops can be successfully cultivated. The selection of elements appropriate to local livelihoods will be best made by rural people who know most about local conditions. This participation in planning implementation and maintenance has been shown to produce highly effective, efficient and sustainable solutions, but generally only on a small scale. The final element of the challenge for fostering this new revolution lies in support, by national governments, in the form of appropriate institutional and legal frameworks, and economic incentives to make these islands of success work.5 Some of the new crop candidates will prove sufficiently adaptable for liqueur and may become the base for small scale industries that produce fruit, jam, liqueur, oil, timber, honey, candies, medicine and cosmetics,thereby giving the inhabitants of the arid, saline and marginal lands a way of making a living, without destroying the sparse and fragile ecosystems they live in. That in essence is the ultimate aim of project M20 -018. Preparation of Germplasm
In general, the use of seedlings rather than clones will be encouraged, simply to allow more genetic scope and variability for initial adaptation. Exceptional and high yielding individuals can be propagated later, after evaluation of the germplasm. 5Kirkby,J. P. O'Keefe and L. Timberlake (Eds.)1995, The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Development, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London. 
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 Home | Technical Summary | Relevance | Cooperation | Sustainability Technical Objectives | Evaluation | Project Map | Format | Current Status |
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No part of the contents herein may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For more information on this project, contact Dr. Solowey elaine@desertagriculture.org |
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