June 2019

For Media Enquiries

Mrs. Dima Al-Kahhale

Communication and Outreach Liaison

comms@biosaline.org.ae
+971 4 304 63 45

Led by Mrs. Hafida El Filahi, general secretary of the cooperative, all women who work here have different stories to share but one common goal: to make a living for themselves and their families and create employment opportunities for other women in their community.
Ms. Fatiha Rostan, one of the youngest women at the cooperative who is in charge of finance.
Mrs. Kenza Laghchaoud, a cooperative member in her late 60s, is an expert in preparing couscous. She says that their profits have increased significantly since they began adding quinoa to their products.
According to Mr. Youness Jnaoui from UM6P, their research efforts have so far been successful.

Moroccan rural women come together to create quinoa value chain link

20 June 2019

At first glance Mrs. Hafida El Filahi, Mrs. Kenza Laghchaoud and Ms. Fatiha Rostan look no different from any other rural women in Morocco. They live in a far-away area called Bourrous in Rehamna Province, about 320 km from Morocco's capital of Rabat, and lead a mundane country lifestyle, looking after their households. But that is what appears on the surface. Unlike most of the rural women in the country, they are more independent and proactive in many ways. Above all, they enjoy a degree of financial independence and can support their families.

“It was a great opportunity to push forward my research and help my students," says Dr. Afwa Thameur.
“Over the past two years, we have made some crossing to develop a variety which matures early and has good nutritional value. I want to thank ICBA and CRDF Global for helping me with this project. Through this project, we were able to make a lot of crossings, and introduce some genetic material from the USA in our breeding program,” says Dr. Chafika Houasli.
Another winner of the grant Dr. Amani Bchir, a research associate at the Olive Tree Institute, University of Sfax, Tunisia, who worked with Dr. David Mulla from the University of Minnesota, says: “It was a good opportunity for me as a woman researcher from North Africa to receive this grant."
Dr. Rim Nefissi Ourteni, Assistant Professor at the Biotechnology Center of Borj Cedria (CBBC), Tunisia, who teamed up with Dr. Robert Jansen from the University of Texas at Austin, for her project says: “Unfortunately, women do not have enough opportunities to be supported in scientific fields. Especially in the MENA region, there is no equality in research opportunities between men and women. This grant allowed me to go deeper into molecular research in salt tolerance of barley.”

Helping Arab women scientists achieve more

15 June 2019

A joint research grant program by the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and CRDF Global, launched in October 2016, is helping four Arab women scientists to conduct advanced research in collaboration with leading US scientists and thus realize their full potential.

One of them is Abdulrady, an elderly farmer whose 8.4-ha farm had suffered from salinization for years. With few resources, Abdulrady was helpless, watching his farm turn infertile over the years.
As part of the projects, Abdulrady also regularly attended farmer field schools (or field training programs for farmers). In 2013 alone, eight farmer field schools were conducted benefiting many farmers like Abdulrady.

How quinoa is changing farmers’ lives in Egypt’s salt-affected areas

10 June 2019

Agriculture accounts for a large part of Egypt’s gross domestic product. In 2018 it contributed around 11.2 percent to the country’s economy, totaling some 13.2bn USD. As important as it is, however, the sector is still faced with many problems.