ships driven mainly by client demands. These changes are being accompanied by a growing understanding of farmers' problems and opportunities and a greater willingness to blend indigenous knowledge and modern information.

• Growing investments in biotechnology aim to increase agricultural research productivity and have the potential to revolutionize production practices by generating customized crop varieties. While national and international public funding available for agricultural research and extension systems has gradually decreased, private sector biotechnology research has attracted considerable support. Most of this research is likely to focus on profitgenerating inputs, export crops and agroprocessing.
• Research on water resources has mainly focused on water management, water saving, and new sustainable processes to reuse wastewater and desalinize salty water.

Some examples of research conducted in CWANA are outlined here:

• One of the first research institutions in CWANA was in Sudan. Started in 1907, it concentrated only on cotton research during the British administration. After independence, it focused on diversification and intensification; food crops were introduced as part of agriculture research programs. The fields covered were soil management, crop husbandry, crop protection, and plant and animal breeding. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s a lot of research was conducted and published in international journals. Now little is published. Research concentrates only on irrigated crops, neglecting rainfed crops, although the rainfed area (mechanized and traditional) is ten times the size of irrigated areas in Sudan. Research on livestock is meager, concentrating mainly on veterinary issues as opposed to increasing production. Nowadays, the agricultural research situation in Sudan is bleak because of the lack of funds, the brain drain and partisan issues. Agricultural research once was the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, but it has now been transferred to the Ministry of Science and Technology. The implications are not positive; the connection between farmers and extension agents has been considerably weakened.
• In Jordan, one of the pioneer specialized research institutes in agriculture is the National Center for Agriculture Research and Technology Transfer, whose field stations serve as research and demonstration farms. Research is mainly to develop drought-resistant varieties of cereals and legumes and to breed livestock. Field stations disseminate findings. Seeds of improved varieties are produced in large scale for farmer supply. The Ministry of Agriculture has an extension division whose agents (animal production engineers, plant production engineers, soil engineers) provide advice to farmers and consult with them. The main constraint is financial; all research depends on international funds. Most work has been on developing and selecting varieties for rainfed farming adapted to arid lands, mainly barley and wheat. Government funds mainly concentrate on extension.
• Irrigation systems have been developed to encourage efficient irrigation. Most developments have focused on

adapting and transferring new irrigation techniques, such as drip and sprinkler irrigation, which during the 1980s took over from traditional practices using basin irrigation. These new techniques were first introduced by the Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture and its extension system, with institutions and regulations set up to discourage farmers from using more water. Another incentive for adopting irrigation techniques that use less water is it saves pumping, as most farming activities depend on groundwater pumped from deep aquifers. For surface-water users, the main reason to consume less water is that they must pay for the water they use. To encourage take-up of new technologies, new irrigation techniques are introduced into research stations. Over time, people start seeing the benefits of saving water and the ease and practicality of operating these techniques versus the traditional basin and channeling system. Where costs are saved by using less water, the incentive to use water-saving techniques is strong. However, when water is free or the cost is not tied to the amount of water used, farmers prefer the easier traditional basin techniques. This is typical for countries with abundant water or government-subsidized irrigation water.

• Egyptian farming systems represent all the different situations: Nile River water is channeled to the farming areas where farmers get it for free and most irrigation systems are basin. In the farming areas using groundwater two systems are in operation. One is that the government digs wells and pumps the water into channels to the farming areas at no cost to the farmers. In this system mostly basin irrigation is used. The other is that farmers have their own wells and pump their water; almost all use efficient irrigation systems that save pumping costs. These technologies are associated with added costs to the farming system. Most of the time, the savings in water pay this cost, but sometimes farmers do not have the initial start-up costs. In such cases government may intervene to help farmers adopt these irrigation watersaving techniques. Indeed, one of the major tasks of the agricultural credit fund in Jordan is to provide soft loans, with a subsidized interest rate, to farmers to adopt the new technology. In Tunisia, government greatly subsidizes adoption of new irrigation techniques.
• With increased domestic water and sanitation requirements, more treated wastewater is reused for agricultural production. Research is carried out on reusing reclaimed, treated wastewater for restricted irrigation (forage, wood trees, etc.). This reuse of treated wastewater differs from country to country and is mostly carried out where water resources are limited and in high agricultural demand. Some countries, such as Tunisia, have had good experience and use treated wastewater in farming on a large scale; others, like Jordan, are now testing; but the experience of most CWANA countries is limited.
• With the evolution of structural engineering, humankind is able to build massive structures that can dam tremendous amounts of water. In the last century, a number of mega dams were built on major rivers, allowing people to regulate water flow and farm all year round with water for dry cycles. Examples are the Aswan High dam