San Diego (special) -- San Diego State University's Hansen Institute for World Peace received authorization from the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) last week to begin coordinating a program that brings together Israel, the Palestine Authority, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco in a common campaign to increase agricultural productivity in their deserts.

Although $5 million annually for a five-year program had been appropriated by Congress last year at the request of Rep. Ron Packard, R-Oceanside, actual allotment of the money had been held up by USAID because its budget is insufficient to cover projects throughout the world that Congress has approved.

Last week, AID okayed the expenditure of $600,000 over the next 18 months to ready desert agricultural programs in the four countries and the Palestine Authority, W. Timothy Hushen said.

Hushen, director of program management of the San Diego State Foundation--which operates the Hansen Institute--said Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and Turkey are expected to participate in the desert agriculture program in the future.

Representatives of all nine Middle Eastern governments had gathered on the San Diego State campus in March of 1997 to hammer out a regional proposal to fight the desert, make better use of water, and to increase agricultural yields on their arid lands. 

Before that, San Diego State University had coordinated cooperative agricultural programs between Israel and Egypt, and between Israel and Morocco. The March 1997 conference was the first opportunity for SDSU to coordinate a regional approach in an area of the world marked more by nationalistic and religious rivalries than by cooperation. 

SDSU's Hansen Foundation had been encouraged to sponsor last year's proposal-writing conference by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who now is associated with the project through an agreement reached by the Hansen Institute and the Peres Institute for World Peace.

Hushen, who supervises projects around the world for the SDSU Foundation, said the next steps will be for him and Dr. Bonnie Stewart, SDSU's coordinator of the desert agriculture project, to meet with AID officials both in Washington and the Middle East. In Washington, they will further refine the project. Overseas, they will acquaint AID workers in the field with its details.

As written last year on the SDSU campus, the regional proposal envisioned a variety of complementary projects. For example, said Hushen, the Egyptians wanted to look at ways of "maximizing each drop of water" so that an agricultural crop could be given "the exact amount of water it requires in the most productive way."

This involves utilizing "high-tech agriculture, plastic houses, drip irrigation and so forth," he said. "It's the highest level of agricultural production in terms of efficent use of water...Anything that we can do that makes that water as productive as it can be either frees up water for domestic consumption or increases agricultural production."

The Jordanians and the Palestinians separately expressed interest in recycling wastewater for agricultural uses, Hushen said. "They are interested in working with the Israelis in developing some private projects," the SDSU Foundation administrator said. "I believe in Jordan there are two large water recycling plants and what they need now is help in actual utilization of the water."

Morocco, he said, already operates "a small wastewater demonstration project and we need to learn more about that."

For its part, Israel proposed continued work in the development of salt-tolerant plants, and ways of maximizing the reuse of water. Hushen said the Israelis also are interested in using genetics or traditional plant grafting techniques to develop new crops.

To find the right staff to implement these proposals, Hushen anticipates seeking proposals from, among others, the International Arid Lands Consortium, a group which includes the Jewish National Fund and five American universities currently doing research on fighting the desert. 

These include the University of Arizona, New Mexico State University, South Dakota State University, Texas A&M University-Kingsville and the University of Illinois.The International Arid Lands Consortium and the Hansen Institute recently signed a cooperative pact.

Hushen said getting a project started seems to require "an inordinate amount of energy...but once it is launched it is a lot easier to keep it going and then add to it.

"I think we are over the critical stage and now we can get in and do some exciting stuff," he said.