ABSTRACT
Improving wheat production in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region W. Tadesse, A. Amri, M. Sanchez-Garcia, M. El-Bouhssini, M. Karrou, S. Patil, F. Bassi and M. Baum, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Morocco; and T. Oweis, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Jordan
1 Introduction
2 Major wheat production environments
3 Challenges to wheat production
4 Improved technologies to enhance wheat production
5 Intensification of wheat technologies
6 Future trends
7 Where to look for further information
8 References
Wheat is the principal staple food in most countries of the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, accounting for 45% of the region’s per capita calorie intake with an average wheat consumption of about 200 kg/capita/year, which is the highest in the world. The CWANA region is a vast geographic area extending west to east from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to the fertile irrigated Indus valley in Pakistan, and from the highland, high-rainfall areas of Ethiopia in the south to the temperate and dry northern Kazakhstan. As expected, this vast geographic area is characterized by large variations in agro-ecology, farming systems, moisture, temperature, soil types and cultural practices. Accordingly, the region harbours all kinds of wild and cultivated wheat types of different growth habits. During the period 1961-2013, the area of wheat production increased from 26.9 to 54 million ha, while total production and yield (t/ha) increased from 22 to 122 million tons and from 1.1 to 2.6 t/ha, respectively (Fig. 1).
