The 10th International Barley Genetics Symposium will beinaugurated on April 6 at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt. The Symposium has been jointly organized by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), and Bibliotheca Alexandrina with the support of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and OPEC Fund for International Development.

Dr Ismail Serageldin, Director of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Dr Mahmoud Solh, Director General, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Prof Dr Adel El Beltagy, Chair of GFAR and Advisor to the Minister for Agriculture, Egypt, and Dr Jaroslav Spunar, Chair of the International Organizing Committee of the IBGS, will be addressing the inaugural session

The Symposium is the most important forum for barley scientists and the industry worldwide, where results and current trends of barley research and production are presented and discussed, and future strategies are decided.

At Alexandria, scientists will deliberate on issues like global barley production, improvement of crop quality, impact of climate change and global warming on barley crop and new technologies to overcome these challenges. It will also cover a diverse range of applied and basic research on barley.

Barley is cultivated in over 56 million hectares of land the world over and it is the fourth most planted cereal crop. Over the last few years there has been a steady increase in barley and scientists believe that with the increasing global temperatures and the challenges posed by climate change, barley cultivation would expand even more, as this crop grows in warm areas.

“Barley can help people survive climate change and global warming, it is the crop of the poor people,” says Dr. Stefania Grando, ICARDA’s Principal Barley Breeder and the Chair of the local organizing committee of the Symposium.

Besides being the staple food for the poor in parts of North Africa, Central and South Asia, Barley is grown as a cash crop in many developing countries and is used for malt production all over the world.

It is for the first time that the Symposium is being held in Africa and the Middle East Region. The First International Barley Genetics Symposium was held in Wageningen, the Netherlands in 1963. In the past it was held five times in Europe (the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Czech Republic), twice in North America (USA and Canada), and once each in Australia and Asia (Japan). The last Symposium was held on 20-26 June 2004 in Brno (Czech Republic), and was attended by about 350 delegates from all over the world.

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Established in 1977, ICARDA (www.icarda.org) is one of the 15 international research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of barley, lentil, and faba bean; and dry-area developing countries for the on-farm management of water, improvement of nutrition and productivity of small ruminants (sheep and goats), and rehabilitation and management of rangelands. In the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, ICARDA is responsible for the improvement of durum and bread wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes and farming systems; and for the protection and enhancement of the natural resource base of water, land, and biodiversity.