Director of
Dryland Agriculture Research Directorate
Dr Kidane Georgis
PO Box 2003,
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
Telephone:
251 1 454438
251 1 09203866 (Cell)
251 1 462633 Extn. 339
Fax: 251 1 461294
E-mail: dryland@earo.org.et
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Goals
The dryland agriculture research program aims at:
 Alleviating poverty and maintaining food security,
Increasing income opportunity and employment generation,
Conserving natural resources, a healthier, better nourished human family, reduced pressure on fragile natural resources, and people centered policies for sustainable agricultural development
Mission
- To coordinate national research activities concerning dryland agriculture, and
- To conduct basic and applied research that may contribute to the development of strategies for farming systems in the dry areas
Objectives
The general objective of the sector is:
 To develop agro-ecologically based technologies
to improve sustainability, productivity, profitability and equity of dryland
areas through generation, assessment, refinement, transfer and effective
adoption of appropriate technologies, which conserve resource and attain
food security.
The specific objectives of dry land research program are to:
 Develop appropriate crop management practices
to increase crop production, knowledge base on stress physiology thereby
increase water and nutrient use efficiency.
Develop appropriate crops and cropping systems
that sustain crop production.
Develop and select crops and crop varieties suitable for dryland agro-ecologies,
Develop appropriate integrated pest management practices and reduce yield loss under dryland conditions.
Generate and promote technologies that improve
nutritional status of the society and reduces post harvest losses thereby
contributing towards food security and improved export earnings.
Priority Areas
The research priority areas of the dryland agriculture sector include:
- Characterization of natural resources and farming systems
- Soil and water conservation
- Plant and nutrient management
- Efficient forest and forest product conservation, management and utilization
- Efficient crops and cropping systems
- Development of alternate land use system
- Rangeland management
- Improvement and enhancement of the pastoral/agropastoral production system
Since water is the major production constraint in the drylands, the strategy also underlines the importance of concerted efforts of conserving and utilizing every drop of water effectively for grain and biomass production.
Through the preparation of sound and effective research strategy and its implementation by the federal and regional research centers, the dryland agriculture research sector will be able to provide farmers with improve technologies that lower their production costs, sustain their production, and protect the environment.
Research Programs
To improve research focus and address the complex problems of dryland agriculture the dryland research sector has identified four research programs and designed several sub-programs under these programs. The research programs are:
- Natural resource management research
- Pastoral and agropastoral
- Dryland crop research
- Dryland forestry research
- Dryland agricultural socio-economics and policy research
- Dryland farm implements research
- Dryland research-extension program
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