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Many countries in the Near East and North Africa region (NENA) are facing serious challenges for achieving national food security in strategic crops. The Agricultural potential varies widely across countries, but the regions' resources base is under extreme stress due to major constraints such as low and erratic rainfall, the scarcity of arable land, fragmented landholdings and the serious degradation of natural resources caused by soil erosion, salinity, overgrazing and desertification, all of which undermine agriculture growth and sustainable food production.
The Near East region is the centre of genetic diversity of some of the world's major food crops such as wheat, barley, rye, lentils, peas, oats, beet, artichokes, olives, grapes, onions, garlic and date palms. However, this valuable genetic diversity of plant resources is rapidly declining due to natural and human activity. The loss of biodiversity is largely due to the replacement of local landraces by inadapted improved varieties, population pressure, urbanization, droughts, overgrazing and desertification, with a consequent decrease in natural genetic variability.
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Agricultural policies aimed at achieving increased productivity and food security must emphasize strategies that will guarantee the availability of well adapted varieties, improved cultural practices and good quality seed, in addition to strategies to adopt modern techniques in biotechnology, the conservation of plant genetic resources, crop diversification, organic agriculture and the protection of the environment.
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The RNE crop production programme is geared towards supporting national and regional crop production activities and provides technical advice, consultancies and training. The programme also promotes the exchange of information, and conducts studies on problems related to crop production and management.
The overall specific objectives are to review and closely analyze the situation of major crops in the Near East, which include field crops (cereals, food legumes, orphan crops) , horticultural crops (fruits, vegetables, roots, tubers, mushrooms and ornamentals), and industrial crops (edible oils, fibers, medicinal and aromatic crops) and provide practical recommendations and information to assist in increasing sustainable production from these crops.
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To achieve these objectives RNE actively cooperates with many regional and international agricultural organization and centres such as CIMMYT, CIHEAM, ESCORENA, ICARDA, ACSAD, AOAD and others.
RNE also supports the efforts of member countries in formulating policies, national strategies and technical guidelines on all issues related to crop production.
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