The Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources, and Fisheries in Tunisia with the Director-General of ACSAD / Discussions
His Excellency, the Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources, and Fisheries, Dr Mahmoud Elyas Hamza, has discussed with His Excellency, the Director-General of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands ACSAD, Dr Nasr Edin Obaid, in Tunisia, the relations of cooperation between the two sides and the ways of enhancing and developing it in various fields; especially in benefiting from the applied and research expertise of ACSAD in the agriculture sector in Tunisia.
During his reception to His Excellency, ACSAD’s Director-General in Tunisia, today, His Excellency, Minister Hamza, praised the applied and research projects implemented by ACSAD in most Arab countries and the programs responding to the priorities of the agricultural sector, included Tunisia; since ACSAD is considered to be a distinguished Arab house of expertise.
He also confirmed the determination and willingness of his Ministry to enhance cooperation with ACSAD Organization and support its regional office in Tunisia, calling for creating research and developmental nets to evaluate research results in the Arab countries and exchanging the success stories and the experiences.
For his part, Dr Nasr Edin Obaid presented a brief presentation on the most important programs and projects of the Center; alerted to the problems that face the agricultural growth in the Arab countries, particularly the impacts of the climatical changes on various agricultural sector fields (plant-animal), and water resources; working on finding the appropriate applied research solutions through profound and field studies in water harvesting; and raising the irrigation efficiency and the conservation agriculture.
He clarified that ACSAD worked on developing the varieties of wheat, barley, and legumes that have high yield and adapted to climatical difficulties and are resilient to diseases. Furthermore, develop small ruminants’ strains of sheep and goats; fodder, rangeland, fruit trees, reclamation of agricultural lands as well.
Dr Nasr Edin Obaid stressed the importance of the previous agreements and projects implemented by ACSAD in cooperation with the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture; confirmed the Center’s readiness to develop this cooperation and place all its experiences and experiments at the Ministry of agriculture disposal to support the developmental and research efforts in the agricultural sector in Tunisia. He also emphasized supporting ACSAD’s regional office in Tunisia to be an enlightening centre in the brotherly Arabian Maghreb at all countries’ levels.
The meeting was attended from the Tunisian side by the Director-General of the Livestock and Pastures Office, Mr Ezuldin Shalghaf, the Director-General of Research and High Agricultural Education Institution, Hisham Bin Salem, and the manager of International Cooperation, Haikal Hashlaf; and from the Arab Center, Mr Muhammad Nasry the manager of the livestock department and Mr Hafez Khalif the ACSAD’s regional office director in the Arabian Maghreb in Tunisia.
It is worth mentioning that His Excellency, the Director-General of ACSAD, is visiting Tunisia with an official invitation to participate in the Arab Radio and Television Festival’s actions from 19-22 of this month.
