Page 3
MENA NWC Update
Research Team Begins Global Yield Gap Atlas
for the Middle East and North Africa
The Network is funding a
research collaboration
between the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln and three
Network Centers to
produce the first Global
Yield Gap Atlas for
Morocco, Jordan and
Tunisia. It will be a
transparent, reproducible,
agronomically accurate,
interactive map-based web
platform to estimate the
exploitable gaps in yield for
the four major food crops in
each country.
The research team met held
their kick-off meeting at
Wageningen University in
The Netherlands from 10-12
September. The meeting
offered an opportunity for
the research team to meet
face-to-face for the first time
and agree to their project
plans, deliverables and
timeline for the months
ahead.
The Atlas will enable
CALL FOR PAPERS
Photo courtesy of UNL
Global carrying capacity for
food production and our
ability to protect carbon-rich
and biodiverse natural
ecosystems from conversion
to cropland ultimately
depend on achieving
maximum possible yields on
every hectare of currently
used arable land. Yet, for
most major crop producing
regions of the world there
are no reliable data on the
exploitable gap between
current average farm yield
and yield potential or water
productivity, the efficiency
with which water is
converted to food.
From left to right UNL postdoc Justin van Wart with UNL
agronomists Patricio Grassini and Ken Cassman.
producing regions lacking
these data and new
methods for up-scaling
local yield gap estimates
to regional and national
levels
achievement of the following
goals:
• Encourage greater
investment and
involvement in
agricultural development
by providing a tool to
help identify areas with
the greatest potential to
sustainably produce
more food
• Increase research
capacity by developing
agronomically relevant
long-term weather
databases in major crop-
The research is being carried
out as part of a global
assessment of the yield gap.
Elsewhere, initial atlas
development work is
underway with funding from
the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation focused on
selected crops in 12
countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia.
Principal Investigator:
• University of Nebraska, USA
CoCo-Principal Investigators:
• Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Science Hassan II
(IAV), Morocco
• National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension
(NCARE), Jordan
• National Institute of Research for Rural Engineering,
Water and Forestry (INRGREF), Tunisia
The Sultan Qaboos
University has issued
a call for papers for an
International
Conference on
Desalination,
Environment and
Marine Outfall
Systems. The
conference will be
held at SQU from 1316 April, 2014. Papers
should be submitted
to Dr. Mahad
Baawain, Director of
the Center for
Environmental
Studies and Research
at
[email protected].