Heaps of coffee pulp being burned in Jimma

Coffee from Jimma accounts for about 35% of the dry and 40% of the wet processed coffee exported from Oromia region. As one of the major cash crops in Jimma zone more than 65% of the population earn their livelihood (directly or indirectly) from coffee. Based on data from the zonal office of agriculture, it seems there are 64 private investors working on 13,532 hectares of land and 258 coffee processing plants (146 wet and 112 dry coffee processing plants) in Jimma zone. It is also estimated that 112,000 tons of coffee fruits are produced in Jimma zone in a year.

Research results indicate that coffee by-products are a source of severe contamination of rivers and therefore cause serious environmental problems. For this reason, efforts are being made to utilize the by-products. For instance, coffee pulp can be used in the production of feed and compost. Coffee pulp can also replace up to 20% of commercial concentrates in dairy cattle feeding with no adverse effects. Results from feeding studies also indicate that maize can be substituted by dehydrated coffee pulp up to 16% of the total ration, with no detrimental effect on weight gain or feed conversion. Professor Solomon Demeke, a nutritionist in Jimma University, explains that good quality silage can be produced either only from coffee pulp or in combination with forages for dairy feeding.

The use of pulp is not limited to these but also for firewood as it is or by making briquettes for energy. Coffee pulp is also a good source of humus and organic soil carbon which is good for improving soil quality as well.

The common practice in coffee processing plants in Jimma zone is to discard coffee pulp and it is common to see heaps of coffee pulp along roads and in and around the premises of processing plants. Some people however use the pulp as a source of fuel in restaurants. Kahsay Berhe, a research officer in LIVES, also explains that farmers near coffee processing plants in the southern parts of Ethiopia use pulp for composting and fertilization of their coffee tree. There is at least one small factory in Addis which is producing briquettes as a source of energy for specialized stoves.

Out of 100 kg of coffee fruit, about 52% is coffee bean and 48% is by-products (waste, pulp mainly) which means that about 54,000 tons of coffee pulp is produced from Jimma zone, annually.

There is a great potential for LIVES and its partners in Jimma zone to explore ways to the use coffee pulp as a source of alternative livestock feed that is cost effective, locally accessible and sustainable.

Written by: Gemeda Duguma with contribution from Abule Ebro, Nigatu Alemayehu, Adisu Abera and Kahsay Berhe

News and updates on LIVES project

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Program News

LIVES at two years old

During the last few months, LIVES has transformed from a toddler to a fully grown child. Interventions and activities on all project pillars are well underway. The project team at headquarters, regional and zonal level is now all on board.

Gaps in capacity and knowledge management were identified and interventions have been planned at district and zonal levels with focal persons, experts, development workers, model farmers, input suppliers, processers and traders. Various training workshops and experience sharing tours have also taken place and were highly appreciated.

E-readers were distributed to public sector staff and training provided. Thirty three district and zonal knowledge centers that will be used by development agents and experts have been made fully operational.

Project staff have come across various stories from the field and documented their observations, opinions and lessons on the project’s blog page to share with a wider audience. Visit the blog to keep up, and share your comments!

Another major activity in the past few months was the baseline study of 5,000 households – with half project beneficiaries and half control groups.

Value chain interventions

Small scale processing: a pathway to reliable dairy markets in TigrayValue Chain Interventions

Tsehaye Reda, a dairy processor in Adwa district, is addressing smallholder dairy farmers’ market problems through a simplified concept of ‘value chains’ whereby farmers supply their fluid milk to his plant, and supermarkets, retailers and consumers in turn buy pasteurized milk and other processed dairy products from him. He started his business with 9 Holstein Friesian cross bred cows (6 purchased and 3 donated), a 500-liter capacity pasteurizer and a mini milk packaging plant. Although the demand for fluid milk varies, with the current capacity of the plant, he collects milk from 100 smallholder dairy farmers. More

Why don’t dairy processors in Ethiopia buy sour milk from farmers?

Most dairy processing activities in Ethiopia focus on fresh milk, sold in raw, boiled or pasteurized forms to consumers. The unsold fresh milk is usually processed into fresh butter. Any remaining skimmed milk is either sold to consumers or is heated to get a soft cheese known as “ayeb”. In some places unsold fresh whole milk is naturally fermented into “irgo” (yoghurt). Part of the fermented irgo is creamed off to churn it into local butter. Dirk Hoekstra asks if we can increase demand for dairy products obtained from soured milk?  More

Fertigation for forage grasses

Birtukan and her husband are dairy farmers in Arbegona district. They used to feed their cows by renting private grazing land and providing supplementary feed from enset leaves and leftovers from kocho processing. Nowadays, the cost of renting private land has increased dramatically. Hence, Birtukan and her husband decided to try new techniques of forage production that would increase the productivity of their animals and at the same time reduce their feed cost. Fertigation, which is the process of applying irrigation and fertilizer/manure to forage crops proved to be an innovative solution for this couple. More

Maximizing use of agricultural industrial by products in South Wollo 

South Wollo is blessed with an abundance of agro- industrial by-products: wheat bran from flour factories, oil cake from small scale oil processing factories, as well as brewers waste from a brewery. Dairy farmers, especially urban ones in Dessie and Kombolcha, already buy these feed ingredients from small shops or directly from the source. The effect of this increased demand can be seen bythe transformation of these products from “waste” to “valuable” products, which is reflected in the price increase over the past 10 years. More

Hydroponic fodder production for smallholder livestock farmers

Behaylu Abraha is a young university graduate who owns and manages ‘YB Plant Micro Propagation PLC’ – a small family business engaged in hydroponic technologies in Mekelle. After working for a private tissue culture company for seven years, he decided to set up a private business in hydroponics (fodder, mushrooms, vegetables, and certified pre-basic and basic potato seeds) in a 420 m² rental residential house. The actual effective area used for hydroponic fodder production is 160 m2. More

Small-scale feed marketing in East Shoa

Feed is the major input cost incurred in livestock production and is one of the focus areas in LIVES intervention districts. Entrepreneurs in Dugda district, Meki town, are involved in the supply of agro-industrial by product as livestock feed to urban and rural livestock owners. Though it’s a male dominated business there are some women actively involved as well. These entrepreneurs share their lessons and challenges in the business. More

Honeybee colony splitting techniques from a remote village in Tigray

Keshi  Fisseha Berhe lives in the remote village of Derokai in Adwa district. He is an innovator in honeybee colony splitting. He gained basic beekeeping skills from his parents who kept traditional mud hives for honey production.  Back in 2004, he decided to shift to improved box hives when the local agricultural office pushed him to take a loan and buy three hives. Since then, the presence of a lucrative business for honeybee colonies have contributed to his ambition to invent a rapid and space saving colony splitting technique. More

Beekeeping as a family business

Abajihad Ababulgu, his two wives and their children are engaged in backyard beekeeping. His efforts are well recognized by the community and the extension office. He and his family own all types of hives: Traditional (80) hung on the tallest tree in the compound, transitional (30) and modern (8) lined up under a well-built shed in the family’s backyard. The orderly mixture of hives and coffee trees creates an exciting environment for visitors. More

Chicken and egg marketing: Insights from Meki

Chicken rearing is part of the lifestyle of the communities of Dugda. Eleven Peasant Associations are famous for their high chicken production; the soil is fertile and there are fish by-products available which provide excellent chicken feed. These chickens apparently grow faster, maintain their body condition longer during transportation, resist diseases and have bigger and more attractive eggs than those obtained from elsewhere.  More

Cherechera chicken producers association in Amhara

LIVES project recently conducted a rapid assessment on the status of chicken production in West Gojjam Zone. The assessment identified some major challenges such as lack of quality poultry rations, serious skill and knowledge gaps of producers to run chicken farms as a business, financial limitations, shortages in the supply of day-old chicks and veterinary drugs, inadequate health service provision and poor market linkages.

To mitigate these production and marketing challenges, the project facilitated the creation of learning forums/platforms. The first activity was to organize innovation platform meetings, which help producers, processors, traders and experts share their experiences, views, challenges, and success or failure stories. More

Integrating seedling suppliers with fruit growers in Tigray

Attractive and delicious tropical and temperate fruits are much in demand in the local markets of Tigray, particularly Mekelle town. Over the past two decades, research and development partners have worked to improve the regional fruit supply system; mainly through the establishment of public fruit nurseries in some fruit areas. This has led to the development of high value fruit corridors in some parts of the region. For instance, mango and orange fruit corridors are successfully developed in the Rama-Hamedo plain along the Mereb River; there is a papaya and mango corridor around the Raya-Alamata plain; and there’s a banana and papaya corridor around the north-western flanks of the Tekeze River drainage. More

Bananas in Arba Minch

In the early 1980s, Arba Minch state farm had 62 ha of land covered by dwarf Cavendish banana. Experts made efforts to introduce banana to the Lante producers’ cooperative, but failed as the cooperative administrators at that time did not perceive banana as an important cash crop. In 1984, a few experts restarted a dialogue to transform the mainly cereal-based subsistence smallholder agriculture to a more market-oriented system by introducing irrigated banana. After repeated discussions with cooperative leaders and extension staff, banana was introduced on 4.2 ha of the cooperative’s land. More

Kalu fruit seedling association moves to a new business model

Some 5 years ago Berhanu Mulu – the Kalu District fruit and vegetable subject matter specialist, initiated the creation of an association for the production and sale of tropical fruit seedlings – mango, avocado and citrus. Over the years, membership increased from 25 to 53 people.

The association sells seedlings on behalf of its members to NGOs, investors, the Office of Agriculture (OoA) and private farmers.  Orders received by the Association are verified against seedling production records of individual members to determine who can contribute to the required amount of a specific species/variety. Once seedlings have been purchased, members are paid by the association. More

Market performance of irrigated vegetables and fruits

Millions of farmers produce diverse and small quantities of products; at times they produce different varieties of the same crop. Therefore the role of brokers has become important.

Brokers assemble the products of many smallholders, before they reach the wholesaler; they use information in the central market to fix the farm gate prices, never to the advantage of the producers. Wholesalers of vegetables and fruits fix the wholesale prices and the retailers adjust the prices based on the whole prices when they sell them to consumers. This is in a nutshell how markets of vegetables and fruits perform in Ethiopia. More

The rift between variety development and seed supply in Ethiopia

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the research system released or recommended a total of 807 improved varieties of different crop species adaptable to different agro-ecologies of the country. These improved varieties can only boost crop production if their seed or planting material is simultaneously multiplied and made available to farmers and if farmers plant these varieties in their recommended agro-ecology. More

Cauliflowers: Exploring a potential cool season vegetable for Amhara

The Amhara region of Ethiopia produces many cool season vegetables: Cabbages, carrots, beetroot, Swiss chard and lettuce are widely grown and supplied to local markets throughout the year. However, cauliflower, the most expensive cool season vegetable is not well-known to smallholder or commercial farmers in the region. More

Capacity development and knowledge management

Connecting the dots – roles for ICTs in agricultural extension services

Mobile applications (both for dumb and smart phones) are emerging as promising options to inform smallholder producers and provide market information and advisory services. Experiences such as iCow, esoko , Farmer line, and mkisan  offer much to learn from. Farmers use these applications to reach experts or to get market informationl. More

Ethiopian monastery illustrates multifaceted benefits of integrated livestock and irrigated crops

The Estephanos Monastery is on an island in Lake Haik in South Wollo, one of the LIVES sites.  It delivers spiritual, social and development activities for local populations. The monks and hermits started agricultural activities to feed themselves and then continued to set up a farm enterprise that produces various irrigated fruits and vegetables both for the monastery as well as the local markets. More

 Gadissa Gobena: Farmer, entrepreneur and extensionist

Now a full-fledged agriculture entrepreneur, Ato Gadissa Gobena owns about 100 crossbred cows that produce on average 15 liters of milk per day. Alongside the dairying, he cultivates maize, wheat, teff and chickpea; in the dry season he irrigates his land from the Huluka river and cultivates maize. Beekeeping is an integral part of his farm in Ambo. He owns close to 100 modern beehives and each produces about 80 kilograms of high quality honey each year. The honey is sold to wholesalers from Addis. More

News and Events

University staff trained on value chains

The LIVES project joined hands with national and international partners to build capacity of university staff on agricultural value chain development and gender mainstreaming. Berhanu Gebremedhin and Ephrem Tessema recently contributed to a workshop organized by the Netherlands’ NUFFIC program for participants from several Ethiopian universities. The LIVES team shared practical experiences on value chain development and gender mainstreaming.  These universities need technical support to help integrate value chain development and mainstream gender into their curricula. For the LIVES project, they also play important roles to potentially promote and scale up research lessons.

Public sector capacity development

The Ethiopian government’s current focus on commercial transformation of subsistence agriculture calls for change in approaches, methods and work culture of the extension officers. Determined to fill these gaps, the Ministry of Agriculture is focusing on building the knowledge and capacity of its public sector staff in agriculture value chain approaches and market oriented agriculture.

The LIVES project is a partner in these efforts and organized training workshops on these new approaches. The first such training was given at the Federal level. Trainees were comprised of experts, team leaders and researchers from the various directorates of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR).

LIVES joins agribusiness finance fair

On March 1 and 2, lively agribusiness finance fair was held in Hawassa town. The event was organized by Agri-ProFocus and other partners including Hawassa University, the regional government, banks, insurance companies, microfinance institutions and private organizations. The fair included panel discussions, a market place as well as a field visit. More

LIVES imports feed choppers, shredders and grain grinders

LIVES has received and tested multipurpose feed choppers, shredders and grain grinders (all in one).  These machines are light enough to transport to remote areas using donkeys or carts. The machines are not for donation but rather to strategically demonstrate feed use and utilization efficiency to initiate business, particularly for the unemployed youth. The machines can chop wet and dry feed materials such as maize and sorghum stover, Napier grass, etc. and can grind grains to different sizes including for concentrate ration formulation using locally available materials. More

E-readers narrow the information gap

In Ethiopia, access to internet is limited in most areas outside of Addis Ababa.  So when you see agricultural extension workers in the sprawling mountains and fields of rural Ethiopia holding e-readers, they seem slightly out of place. The LIVES Project, in an effort to both build the capacity of extension workers and connect them with relevant, easily accessible information is piloting e-readers as information access devices. More

Project management

New technical staff on board

Amenti Chali, Regional Expert – Irrigated Agriculture for Oromia region, joined LIVES in April 2014. Amenti holds an MSc in Agronomy from Hawassa University and a BSc in plant science from Alemaya University. Before joining LIVES/ILRI he worked as an Assistant Researcher in Oromia Agricultural Research Institute (OARI) – Adami Tulu Agricultural Research Center and agronomy and as an Irrigation Officer in the international Development enterprise (iDE). Amenti will be based in OARI in Addis Ababa.

Mamusha Lemma, Capacity Development and Innovation expert, joined LIVES in February 2014. Prior to joining LIVES, he worked at the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) as a Senior Extension Technical Expert. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Sciences (Agricultural Knowledge Systems) from Hohenheim University, Germany and an MA in Rural Social Development from Reading University, UK

Peter Hooper, Livestock Specialist, joined LIVES in April 2014 as a volunteer to support the project in its livestock interventions. Peter has a degree in veterinary science and a number of postgraduate degrees including a PhD in pathology. Peter served at CSIRO, Australia’s premier research organization, as a research scientist for several years, among other organizations.

Solomon Gizaw, Livestock Expert, joined LIVES in March 2014. Solomon has a PhD in Animal Genetics and Breeding from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Prior to joining ILRI, Solomon worked as a senior researcher in livestock breeding and management and designing livestock interventions suited to smallholder systems at ARARI. Solomon was the coordinator of the national sheep research program of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research as well.

Zewdie Adane, Research Assistant for the Oromia regional office, joined LIVES in November 2013. He holds an MSc in Economic Policy Analysis from Addis Ababa University; a joint International Master of Science in Rural Development from a consortium of six European Universities through the Erasmus Mundus scholarship scheme and a BA in Economics from Hawassa University. Zewdie has extensive research experience on impact evaluation, innovation platforms and value chains. Prior to joining LIVES, he was a research fellow at the Policy, Trade and Value Chains program of ILRI based in Nairobi.

Important Links

Website            https://lives-ethiopia.org 

Photos               https://www.flickr.com/photos/lives_ethiopia 

Publications      https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/16691 

Wiki                   http://lives-ethiopia.wikispaces.com/

Email Alert       http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=livesethiopianews

Slideshare         http://www.slideshare.net/ILRI/tag/lives

Irrigated vegetables such as tomato and onion can easily be produced in the lowlands of Gamo Gofa Zone in Ethiopia. However, despite  growing market demands by local hotels, restaurants and lodges in Arba Minch town, there are only a few farmers who produce irrigated tomato and onion in Arba Minch and Mirab Abaya districts. The Central Rift Valley areas around Ziway and Meki were regular suppliers of onion and tomato until recently.

The main reasons for low yields of locally produced vegetables in Arba Minch include; lack of proper inputs such as seeds and agro-chemicals, frequent damage by pests and diseases, limited knowledge and experiences of improved production techniques, and poor access to market information and linkages.

For years, Ayele and his wife Amarech produced irrigated banana and maize with gravity irrigation from the Sille River. This year however, they decided to try  market-oriented irrigated vegetables as well and they allocated a hectare of land to tomato and another hectare for onions.

After receiving proper training on vegetable production – the quality and amount of seed required, the couple spent ETB 5,000 (approximately USD 250) to buy the Marglobe tomato variety and the Adama red onion variety. They were also trained on proper techniques of seedbed preparations, sowing, watering, field preparation, transplanting in proper spacing, furrow irrigation techniques, weeding, staking of tomatoes, proper applications of fungicides and harvesting.

To fill the gap in the supply of high quality tomato seeds, the couple started extracting tomato seeds. They supplied their neighbours and community with high quality seed and earned about ETB 5,000 from seed sales.

On their farm, the yield of tomato and onion was 254 quintal/ha and 224 quintal per hectare, respectively. As they were linked with potential traders, restaurants and hotels at Arba Minch town, they sold the tomato and onion for ETB 6.50/kg and ETB 5.50/kg on average, respectively.

Ayele and Amarach at their irrigated onion farm. Photo: Birhanu Biazin.

The overall cost-benefit analysis revealed that Ayele and Amarch earned a gross revenue of ETB 191,000 per hectare and a net return to family labour of about ETB 110, 000 per hectare (ETB 98,000 per hectare from onion and ETB 122,000 per hectare from tomato) per season.

Although tomatoes have high initial investment costs and require lots of engagement through the production season, the profit is still higher than onions.

Given their success, Ayele and Amarach are trying to produce twice a year by rotating these two crops. This makes profit margins high while also reducing pest and disease cycles.

Following a field day that was organized to share the couple’s story, several more farmers showed interest in irrigated vegetable production.

It’s the hope of LIVES staff that improved production techniques of irrigated tomato and onion will be adopted by many smallholder farmers, satisfying demand from Arba Minch town. Attention will be needed, however, to stagger planting in order to avoid excess supply.

The case of Ayele and Amarech proves that smallholder farmers can transform themselves to a more market-oriented production system with proper extension services that build their capacities and foster market linkages.

Written by Birhanu Biazen, LIVES Regional Expert, SNNPR With contribution from the SNNPR LIVES team and Dirk Hoekstra

A common misconception about watermelon is that it contains mainly water and sugar. In reality, it is a nutrient-dense fruit. Watermelon is an excellent source of antioxidants such as lycopene, and also contains vitamins A and C which help prevent cell damage, neutralize and remove free radicals and help fight off different kinds of cancers. Watermelon is also rich in potassium which helps maintain blood pressure to prevent diseases such as stroke, heart disease and also decreases the size of the kidney stones. It is frequently used for body detoxification as it contains a large amounts of water and it also helps in “cleaning” our kidneys. It is a fruit that is rich in an amino acid known as L-citrulline, which the body converts to L-arginine, an essential amino acid that helps relax blood vessels and improve circulation.

Watermelon was introduced in East Shoa Zone of Oromia region which is currently the only place where it is produced in Ethiopia. Though the exact date of its introduction in Ethiopia is unknown, farmers near Koka Lake in East Shoa explained that watermelon was introduced in their area in the 1950s by an Italian man who lived in Koka town. Today,  production is limited to the lake shore areas of Koka, especially when the volume of the lake shrinks. So far, irrigation to produce watermelon is not common. Since there is quite a good demand for watermelon by consumers – who buy it from supermarkets as well as from fruit and vegetable shops – farmers are starting to give more of their land to watermelons.

Quality and yield are the main factors influencing watermelon production in Ethiopia.  The quality of watermelons produced in Ethiopia tends to be low compared to elsewhere. In Ethiopia,data afrm farm gate, roadie market and supermarket test showed its average total soluble solids (TSS) content to be less than 6% Brix; the minimum TSS should not be lower than 9% Brix (world standard). The productivity of watermelon is generally low due to lack of awareness by producers on agronomic practices, time of harvest, and variety types.

So far, producers have not received extension services on watermelon production techniques and marketing from the government or NGOs and they sell their produce at farm gate at low prices.

Double transaction is the norm at farm gate (producers, brokers and traders) and all producers sell through the process of “terega” which means that buyers collects all watermelons at the same time. Theads means that mature and immature watermelons are all harvested, resulting in low quality of the produce.

After grading the watermelons at farm gate, brokers sell the immature ones to local retailers for roadside markets. The better ones are sold to traders from the central market for big supermarkets and hotels.

Watermelon in Ethiopia needs significant improvement in the types of varieties, production techniques and marketing. Intervention opportunities for LIVES could be by introducing adaptable varieties that produce good fruits, providing technical and practical training on production techniques supported by demonstration and establishment and strengthening of sustainable input supply and marketing linkages.   

Written by Amenti Chali,  with contributions from Abule Ebro and Nigatu Alemayehu

Smallholder farmer Tesfaye Aregawi runs a farm on a small plot of irrigable land and a dairy cow in Hadish-Hiwot kebele, in Tigray Region. Tesfaye has recently adopted an uncommon irrigation farming practice – he grows Alfalfa on a plot of about 300 square-meters for his dairy cow alongside his high-value vegetable crops. Allocating irrigable plots for fodder production has until now been unthinkable among smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. Neither do smallholder farmers grow sole fodder crops in rain-fed agriculture, where lower-value cereals are produced.

Tesfaye’s story is not an isolated one. Quite a number of farmers in LIVES intervention kebeles have opted to grow fodder in their irrigation and rain-fed plots. For instance, Gebretsadik Abay in Dura kebele, Tigray is delighted that his crossbred heifer conceived at an early age of 20 months, which he attributes partly to feeding alfalfa from his irrigated plot. Similarly, a woman farmer, Lemlem in Genfel kebele, Tigray grows Alfalfa under her irrigated fruit trees, a land which is normally used to grow food crops. She believes that supplementing her cow’s daily ration with Alfalfa increased daily milk production by about one liter. Fodder production in croplands is not limited to Alfalfa only. Grasses are also creeping onto croplands. In Amhara region in Enguti kebele, where LIVES introduced efficient delivery of AI through hormone-synchronization of estrus, farmers like Addis Alemu and Sintayehu Sinishaw, among others, allotted about 225 square-meters of their irrigated land to Napier grass production.

Likewise, farmer Tafere Zemene in Debremawi village decided to grow a productive Rhodes grass in his rain-fed plot of 1500 square meters. The farmer plans to set aside part of his grass plot for seed production thereby providing a source of input for other farmers.

Besides growing sole fodder crops in croplands, other innovative entry points for fodder production are being sought by farmers. No ‘wasteland’ is actually wasted by farmers like Keshi Tewolde-Birhan who lives in Dura kebele, Laelay-Maichew district, Tigray and grows Alfalfa & Napier grass on a 260 square-meter gully. Awareness is rising among farmers coached by LIVES and livestock production is becoming a market-oriented business for them.

What is driving the winds of change in fodder and livestock production? A thorough inquiry may be required to understand the driving forces. However there seems to be two obvious reasons. Farmers may be forced to seek for other sources of feed in the face of dwindling grazing resources. Yet, a shift in livestock development approach might have also played a significant role. Livestock development approach includes coaching of farmers on knowledge-based livestock development and linking them up with input suppliers such as fodder planting materials and market in order to adopt improved farming practices. This is the market-oriented value chain approach for livestock development adopted by LIVES.

The changes being witnessed could be considered as successes. However, to sustain irrigated fodder production in competition with high value irrigated crops and realize a market-oriented system that is envisaged by LIVES, the following needs to be considered. Economies of scale should be addressed as most farmers keep only one or two cows. Fodder productivity from small irrigated plots need to be further improved and fodder processing and conservation technologies should be introduced to sustain higher scales of production. Mechanical feed choppers help ease laborious manual chopping, reduce wastage and facilitate feed conservation through small scale silage making. LIVES’ strategy is to work with clusters of farmers in its intervention kebeles in collaboration with Bureaus of Agriculture, Livestock Development Agencies and other partners in the value chains. Transfer of best practices to learning kebeles will be through a spill-over effect and active dissemination by partners through capacity building and joint planning. It is thus imperative that partners actively collaborate to disseminate the best practices witnessed in fodder development.

Written by Solomon Gizaw, with contributions from Yayneshet Tesfaye, Gebremedhin Woldewahid, Dawit Woldemariam, Haile Tilahun, Zeleke Mekuriaw, Teshome Derso, Worku Teka, Mesfin Tefera

Livestock keepers in Barka-Adisba kebele, Atsbi-Womberta district, Tigray region were once confronted with ‘the tragedy of the commons’, as do many livestock keepers in Ethiopia who depend on communal resources. The idiom ‘the tragedy of the commons’ was coined in 19^th century Britain and expresses the failure of farmers to achieve the collective good of their communal grazing lands through their destructive competitive use. The tragedy is caused by overstocking and overgrazing and expressed in land degradation, feed shortage, low livestock productivity and loss of farmers’ livelihoods from livestock. The Atsbi villagers also had to deal with land policy which stipulated closure of degraded hillside grazing/browsing and discouraged extensive grazing of livestock in communal lands.

The Atsbi livestock keepers however acted proactively through the LIVES’ predecessor project (Improving Productivity and Market Success of Smallholder farmers) in a community-based approach. In 2007, a group of villagers sharing 60 ha of communal land in Barka-Adisba kebele came together and developed by-laws for governing their communal land. They declared the land closed to livestock grazing, apportioned it to the villagers in the group and adopted hay production and stall-feeding for their livestock. These farmers saved their lands from degradation and their livelihoods from peril. This cooperative’s voluntary activity has now been scaled up. The grazing land under sustainable management in the district increased to 4000 ha in 2012.

The Atsbi experience has shown that community-based institutional intervention is a feasible approach to avert degradation of communal lands, losses in biodiversity and livestock productivity as well as farmers livelihoods. This approach is more acceptable to villagers rather than enforcing regulations on them. The success of the approach lies in the fact that it is based on existing social norms and promotes a sense of belongingness. Community-based institutional interventions to prevent the tragedy of the commons could take various forms. For instance, in Dura kebele, Laelay-Maichew district the communal land is passed on to and managed by the village church, while the villagers maintain their use right. Other variations of the community-based approach could be adopted depending on local circumstances.

Changes in social arrangements or institutional interventions may not be the only solutions to avert the tragedy. Technical interventions to rehabilitate and improve grazing lands are also required as most communal lands are already degraded. Otherwise, it might not be feasible to close grazing lands and sustain livestock under stall feeding systems. In its future intervention kebeles, LIVES plans to introduce additional technological interventions to enhance pasture productivity, hay production management and storage including introduction of small-scale manual hay balers. The approach described here is perfectly suitable for promoting intensive dairying and fattening systems with small flocks/herds. Would it also be applicable to extensive systems with large breeding flocks (like the subalpine regions of Ethiopia) which could be the source of animals for the semi-intensive fattening systems and the export market?

Written by Solomon Gizaw, with contributions from Yayneshet Tesfaye, Gebremedhin Woldewahid, Dawit Woldemariam, Haile Tilahun 

LIVES Project in Amhara region is introducing new livestock and irrigated crops improvement technologies in its target sites. One of the new livestock technologies initiated by the LIVES predecessor project (Improving Productivity & Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers), and being supported by LIVES is Oestrous Synchronization and Mass Artificial Insemination (OSMAI)in cattle. The OSMAI in cattle has now been fully taken-up by the Regional Livestock Resource Development and Promotion Agency (RLRDPA) and its zonal and district offices. The current support from the LIVES project on OSMAI in cattle is limited to generating scientific evidence that can help fine-tune the approach and efficiency of the technology under different farming conditions.

The application of OSMAI technology is not limited to cattle. It is an accepted technology for all livestock species including sheep in developed countries. From our professional experience and ongoing genetic improvement activities in the region, we realized the usefulness of hormone assisted estrus synchronization in sheep. Estrus synchronization in sheep enables the use of artificial insemination (AI) from genetically superior rams and as a result, reduces the cost of importing and keeping exotic rams for breeding purposes. It also facilitates application of fixed time AI without detecting heat. Synchronized mating results in synchronized lambing and consequently leads to production of the same age and size lambs that are convenient for group marketing, vaccination and feeding. By using programmed estrus synchronization, lambing season can be adjusted to seasons where disease, parasite and predators are less prevalent and better forage is available for lambs and ewes – both of which improve lamb survival. If required, twin/multiple birth can also be induced by use of Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG) as synchronization protocol. Cognizant of the aforementioned benefits of hormone assisted estrus synchronization, the Amhara region LIVES project team, in consultation with head quarter staff and Amhara RLRDPA, tested the first round estrus synchronization in sheep at the Debre Birhan Sheep breeding and Multiplication center.

The purposes of the tests are to train livestock experts and veterinarians on synchronization techniques and protocols; to check effectiveness (ability to induce heat and pregnancy) of simplified and cost effective synchronization protocol using Prostaglandin hormone in local (Menz) and crossbred (Menz X Awasi) ewes and to some extent, enhance supply of improved breeding rams to smallholder farmers in LIVES target zones. The preliminary trial indicated that Prostaglandin is effective in inducing synchronized heat and lambing both in Menz and Awasi ewes.

Since estrus synchronization technology is new to many producers and livestock specialists in many areas of the country, further capacity development work is required. Alternative user friendly hormones and synchronization protocols have to be tested in government and private sheep breeding and multiplication centers and in smallholder farmers’ sheep flocks.  Since rectal palpation to detect fetus in the sheep is not possible, cost effective pregnancy detection devices need to be made available. To maximize merits of estrus synchronization as a genetic improvement tool, synchronized ewes should be artificially inseminated with frozen semen from genetically superior rams.

Written by Zeleke Mekuriaw (PhD) with contributions from the LIVES Amhara team 

Ato Nurhussien with the first born cow of his first cow (Photo:ILRI\Yaynesht Tesfay)

For many poor households, dairying is considered a powerful pathway out of poverty. Marketing of dairy products, however, remains a major challenge to the realization of this potential. In Ethiopia, this challenge is exacerbated by the absence of structured marketing channels and strict religious observance by Orthodox Christians who do not consume animal products during fasting days and seasons. Despite such challenges, there still exist windows of opportunities to exploit niche markets and create wealth. The ability to exploit these markets to a large extent depends on one’s stamina and innovation in establishing reliable market outlets for dairy products.

We want to demonstrate the credibility of this using evidence from a dairy farmer in Agula’a, a small town located 30km north of Mekelle in Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.

Nurhussien Aligoshu is a dairy farmer who has never had a formal education in agriculture and has had no prior exposure to modern dairy farming. His first experience in dairying was in 2006 when a local organization offered him some seed money to purchase a crossbred dairy cow. Nurhussien was able to expand his crossbred dairy herd from 1 to more than 15 cows in just 8 years. His daily milk sales fluctuate between 30 and 70 litres per day depending on demand. Over the same period, Nurhussien’s monthly income from the sale of milk grew from barely 500 Birr to 15,000 Birr.

In addition to managing his dairy cows, Nurhussien has successfully organized and led a dairy marketing cooperative named ‘Daero‘ (with 30 active members) that has been able to find niche markets for liquid milk. Daero cooperative has approved a binding by-law which stipulates that members are not allowed to sell water-adulterated and coagulated/clotted milk. A fine of up to 500 Birr and cancellation of membership rights are imposed on offending members.

The by-law also requires members to participate in various committees which are assigned with diverse tasks. The marketing committee has the sole responsibility of identifying potential milk and heifer markets. The quality control committee oversees the maintenance of herd records and collection of good-quality raw milk to be delivered to cafés, hotels, and restaurateurs through trusted milk collectors/distributors who have established an elaborated business relationship with the dairy marketing cooperative. The selling of replacement heifers, which earns up to 30,000 Birr per heifer, within and outside Tigray, is also another income source enjoyed by the members.

The successful experience of Nurhussien and his fellow cooperative members clearly demonstrates the potential of dairy in boosting income and creating wealth for people with limited options. Members of the dairy marketing cooperative are able to engage in dairying with a clear vision and have managed to create a low- risk environment for dairy farmers. Success came from their overall cooperation, realistic organizational and institutional interventions, sharing of risks, minimizing of ad hoc milk sales and establishing of reliable marketing links with milk collectors/distributors.

In view of the ever-increasing herd size and volume of milk produced by the marketing group members that necessitated other market outlets, the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project identified potential clients and facilitated market linkages with large institutional milk consumers. LIVES also collaborates with Nurhussein and other members of the dairy marketing cooperative to test improved dairy technologies such as simplified corn silage using plastic bags.

Written by Yayneshet Tesfay (PhD) with contributions from Dawit Woldemariam and Gebremedhin Woldewahid.

Maize stover in the field is prone to wastage and tramping by animals (Photo:ILRI\ Solomon Gizaw).

Maize is a major food crop in the lowlands and mid-highlands of Ethiopia, but its stover is not utilized efficiently as animal feed, particularly in rain-fed maize production systems. Rain-fed maize producers’ target is commonly grain production which requires that the cobs be harvested at full maturity of the maize plant thereby leaving the stover too dry. Dry stover is low in nutrients (e.g. 3.7% crude protein as compared to 8.8% in green stover), is less palatable and is not well suited to conserve as silage.

Irrigated maize production offers an opportunity which the rain-fed maize farming does not. Farmers in Fale Kebele of Meta Robi District in Oromia region, like most farmers in irrigated maize systems in Ethiopia, harvest green maize at its milk stage to be sold for roasted cobs. This production strategy is governed by the need to harvest early in the rainy season before the cropland is flooded, which is a common occurrence in low-lying irrigated fields in the wet mid-highlands. Similarly, irrigated maize is usually harvested while green in the moist highlands in order to maximize the benefits from irrigation such as the ability to do multiple cropping. In most cases, sweet-corn provides green fodder as the cobs are meant for fresh use and harvested while the plant is still green. Irrigated maize and sweet-corn production thus allows production of green and fresh stover, which is more nutritious and palatable for livestock than dry stover.

However, similar to dry stover, green stover is also not utilized efficiently by Ethiopian farmers in Fale and elsewhere. The common practice is either to graze the stover in situ or collect, store and feed whole stalks to animals. Such practices result in wastage from trampling by animals and loss of nutrients due to drying and leaching from exposure to sun and rain because of inappropriate storage practices.

A farmer youth group in Fale  was introduced to an innovative way of taking advantage of fodder opportunities offered by irrigated maize farming. Known as the ‘livestock technology-led agribusiness approach’, the method involves twin fodder processing and conservation technologies that use a mechanical feed chopper and small-scale plastic-bag-silage making. This fodder technology package reduces wastage, allows mixing total ration, conserves nutrients in green fodders and improves palatability. The agribusiness approach coaches private entrepreneurs or groups of livestock producers to run small-scale fodder chopping services using mechanical feed choppers/shredders. To this end, the farmer youth group in Fale is being coached and mentored by the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) Project to start a fodder processing and conservation business.

Written by Solomon Gizaw (PhD) with contributions from Abule Ebro (PhD) and Addisu Abera.

Onions from the Koga irrigation scheme prepared for distant markets (Photo:ILRI\ Yigzaw Dessalegne)

Ethiopia has diversified agro-ecology with altitudes ranging from 200 meters below sea level to 4,260 meters above sea level, various soil types and different seasons. This has enabled Ethiopian farmers to produce and supply different types of fresh vegetables throughout the year. Vegetables produced in the north are marketed in the south, west or east and vice versa.

Unlike in developed countries, the majority of vegetables in Ethiopia are transported and stored at room temperature. These poor transportation and storage methods result in high post-harvest losses and subsequently trigger daily market price oscillation. As a result, vegetable traders in Ethiopia, both at high and low level, take time and great care in monitoring vegetable varieties and prices across the country daily, often using their mobile phones, so that they only buy the small quantities they need for short periods.

Some traders buy their vegetables and collect them from as far as 700 kms away from their home towns. In previous years, vegetable traders incurred high operational costs in transportation and travelling time. Nowadays, however, they are able to solve this problem by using their mobile phones. Traders in Bahir Dar, for example, now use their mobile phones to order for supplies from Adama, Shashemene or Asela, towns which are an average of 800 kms from Bahir Dar. They deposit payments directly in the wholesalers’ bank account and receive their goods without having left their home towns. Traders also explained that, in most cases, they have never even seen their suppliers or bulk customers in person.

This situation illustrates that mobile phones are easing vegetable marketing problems in Ethiopia and they have great potential in providing market information services to vegetable producers and traders. The use of mobile phones to access market and other value chain information is an area that the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) Project should build on.

Written by Yigzaw Dessalegne (PhD) with contribution from the LIVES Amhara team. 

To meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the world is going to have to ‘act local’. This story is an example of that. It’s about hardships faced by farmers in Sidama, one of Ethiopia’s leading coffee-producing zone, which lies south of the capital, Addis Ababa, and in the country’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and People region.

Farmers and farming systemsin the once extremely fertile midland regionhere are stressed by an increasing human population. A high proportion of children here are malnourished and the farming systems are still more subsistence- than market-oriented. With the rise of Ethiopian markets for cash crops and dairy products, farmers here are specializing in such crops as coffee and chat, which are replacing the region’s traditional food crops like ‘Enset’ (Enset vetricosum).

A modest, unlikely vehicle for farmers here to make ends meet is the pineapple, which was introduced about 50 years ago. Pineapples should do well here, where the warm climate and soils suit the plant. Although pineapples can fruit throughout the year, in Sidama, the peak harvests are from April to May and October to November.

Because pineapple farming is limited to just a few districts in Ethiopia and is grown by just a few producers, the pineapple value chain is underdeveloped in the country. Among constraints faced by pineapple farmers are lack of planting materials, little knowledge of optimal production practices and inadequate marketing system.

Read the full post on the CGIAR Development Dialogues blog

Hybrid tomato seedings at Florensis Ethiopia PLC (photo credit: ILRI\Amenti Chali).

In recent years, use of hybrid varieties of vegetables has become common in East Shoa zone of Oromia region of Ethiopia. This zone is endowed with favourable climatic and edaphic conditions and is close to major markets. At the moment, East Shoa is the source of fresh fruits and vegetables for major markets including those in Addis Ababa.

Hybrid vegetables reduce environmental pollution as high productivity reduces expansion of irrigated land and thus reduces the aggravation of soil salinity, especially in the Rift Valley areas.  In addition, hybrid vegetable varieties are more resistant to disease and pests compared to conventional ones (open pollinated varieties) and thus help reduce the amount of fungicides and pesticides that need to be applied.

In the past few years, farmers have started using hybrid varieties for better yield and to fetch higher prices. Greenlife Trading and Markos PLC are some of the pioneer suppliers of hybrid vegetable seeds in the country. In East Shoa, farmers estimated revenue from the sale of hybrid tomatoes is 200 times more than the open pollinated varieties (OPVs); which means that there is higher yield and better market price. Farmers in Bora and Dugda districts of East Shoa zone say the yield of recently introduced hybrid tomato (Galilea variety) is about 80 ton/ha while that of OPVs is about 20 ton/ha. One farmer from Bora explained that farmers who grew hybrid tomatoes on 1.5 ha harvested 7 times more and earned 700,000 Birr (about 3,500USD) while, OPV tomato produced only twice more and earned 30,000 Birr (about 1,500USD) from the same size of land.

The practice of germinating and raising hybrid vegetable seedlings is emerging as a professional and commercial activity in East Shoa. Previously, farmers produced seedlings of open pollinated varieties at a relatively low cost in their own nurseries. The price for 200 seeds of locally produced tomato seeds was 0.46 Birr, while the price of one seed of hybrid variety is 0.46 Birr. Despite their higher price, there is increasing demand for hybrid seeds in the zone.

Initially, many farmers started raising seedlings of hybrid vegetables in traditional nursery beds but were unsuccessful. One model farmer in Bora District purchased Galilea hybrid tomato seeds which he planted, as a trial, in traditional nurseries in one hectare at a cost of 23,920 Birr (about 1,196 USD). But the seeds were of poor quality and most failed to grow and he lost about 11,960 Birr (598 USD).

In 2012, Florensis Ethiopia PLC, a private commercial company, started producing high quality tomato seedlings to make more hybrid tomato seedlings available to farmers. The company uses special media (peat moss) imported for rooting of flower cuttings, for seedling production on trays. The seedlings are then sold to farmers in the zone and to those in other parts of the country like Alamata, Dire Dawa, Arba Minch and to commercial farms like Upper Awash Agro-industry PLC.

After the failure of his first trial, the model farmer from Bora District entered into an arrangement with Florensis Ethiopia to raise seedlings on 2.25 ha. He bought the seeds for 23,920 Birr and paid a service charge of 18,000 Birr (about 900 USD) to have the seedlings raised, incurring a total cost 41,920 Birr (2,096 USD). After three weeks, he collected healthy  seedlings from the company for planting. He gave away excess seedlings to a relative, who planted them on a 0.5 ha piece of land. Had he followed his own traditional way of seedling management using seeds of hybrid variety, he would have paid 65,780 Birr (about 3,289 USD).

Despite the success of such arrangements, Florensis Ethiopia allocates only 5% of its time and resources to raising seedlings for farmers.

Smallholder growers therefore have to wait at least two months to submit their orders and a minimum of 19 days is required for the seedlings to be ready for transplanting. This supply delay has forced some farmers to pay about 2.80 Birr per seedling from farmers with excess seedlings grown at Florensis Ethiopia (at only 0.35 Birr/seedling). Lack of hybrid seedlings is therefore a major bottleneck for expanding hybrid tomato production in East Shoa and other parts of Ethiopia.  Also, no attempt has been made so far to substitute the imported rooting media with locally available materials except from ongoing research efforts at Adami Tulu Agricultural Research Centre.

To ensure sustainable hybrid tomato production in the zone and beyond, alternative sources of quality seedlings supply are important. Hence, the Livestock and irrigation value chains for Ethiopian smallholders (LIVES) project is exploring options for formulating and demonstrating vegetable seedling growing media from locally available resources by improving previous attempts with technical support from local players.

For more information:

Effect of seedling management on yield and quality of tomato at Adami Tulu Jiddo Kombolcha District, Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

Written by Amenti Chali and Zewdie Adane with contributions from Kahsay Berhe, Dirk Hoekstra and Abule Ebro.

Fattened oxen buyers visiting producer farms in Gamogofa (Photo:ILRI\Yoseph Mekasha).

Cattle fattening is an important component of livestock farming in Gamogofa Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia. The Zonal Bureau of Agriculture reports that there are about 3.5 million cattle in the zone. Although the area is agro-ecologically suitable for cattle fattening, smallholder cattle fatteners are not earning much from the sector. The beef value chain actors who attended the livestock commodity platform meetings organized by the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project identified the poorly developed cattle marketing system as the number one challenge in the zone. Smallholder fatteners sell their cattle individually in the nearby markets or to local traders in their villages. The smallholders have generally low bargaining power as they do not have market information and thus traders usually dictate the prices. Due to lack of good market and the unfair prices, a majority of these producers do not see the economic importance of engaging in cattle fattening.

Cognizant of these challenges, the LIVES project worked on potential marketing interventions to enhance the beef value chains in the zone. The project and its partners identified potential market outlets and channels; worked on improving access to market information at different levels and tried to establish market linkages between producers and traders/consumers for domestic and export markets. One of the domestic markets is the Addis Ababa consumers’ cooperative, which was established in various sub-city administrations and woredas.

The consumers’ cooperative works on stabilizing the market by supplying food commodities at reasonable prices. Because the price of beef has increased over time, the cooperatives took measures to increase the number of butcheries in different kebeles and districts in Addis Ababa to supply beef at a reasonable price.

Although the owners of the butcheries set up by the cooperatives prefer medium-sized and moderately fattened cattle, they are unable to buy the animals at a reasonable price. This creates an opportunity for smallholder producers (cattle fatteners) to establish linkages with consumer cooperatives without interference from intermediaries.

The LIVES regional team in SNNPR facilitated the establishment of market linkages between smallholders cattle fatteners in intervention districts in Gamogofa with a consumers’ cooperative in Addis Ababa. Representatives of the cooperative visited the intervention districts (Arba Minch Zuria and Mirab Abaya) to assess the potential, establish linkage and buy sample animals for the 2007 Ethiopian New Year.  During the visit, the team held discussions with cattle fatteners and marketing groups organized by LIVES in the intervention districts, and concerned public institutions (Bureau of Agriculture and marketing and cooperative) on the purpose of forging linkages, the type and condition of the animals they are looking for and the possibility of sustaining the linkages. The discussion highlighted the importance of market oriented cattle fattening. The effort is believed to positively influence public institutions in forging and creating market linkages with other institutional buyers as well.

Tracking fattened oxen from Gamogofa to Addis Ababa market (Photo:ILRI\ Yoseph Mekasha)

The team representing the consumers’ cooperative also looked at the type and condition of the cattle fattened by farmers and supplied to the local markets in the intervention districts. Although some of the animals supplied to market are highly fattened, the team confirmed that there are also moderately fattened animals which meet their requirement. Thus, the consumers’ cooperative representatives bought 21 fattened oxen from producers at two local markets and took them directly to Addis Ababa. This was the first transaction made between the consumers’ cooperative and producers, marking the beginning of the market linkage! This direct transaction was beneficial to both parties as they did not incur any extra cost for intermediaries, and the animals were offered at a reasonable price compared to individual sales to traders locally or buying the animals at Addis Ababa markets. The team signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with cattle fattening and marketing groups to strengthen and sustain the business linkage in the future.

In general, the intervention districts of Gamogofa Zone could supply fattened cattle to Addis Ababa consumers’ cooperatives and beyond. The consumers’ cooperative is interested in strengthening direct marketing linkage with producers and cooperatives in the future.

To exploit this opportunity and make it sustainable, cattle fatteners require technical support as well as revisiting of their fattening practices to meet market needs. Extension staff of the Bureau of Agriculture and marketing and cooperative are expected to enhance the capacity of smallholders, provide market information and provide technical backstopping. To this end, LIVES should continue to introduce and demonstrate market oriented interventions to enhance the performance of beef value chain to improve the economic well-being of smallholder producers.

Contributed by Yoseph Mekasha, Tesfaye Dubale, Birhanu Biazen and Tadiwos Zewdie.

Banana is an important commercial commodity in Gamo Gofa zone of the Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s Region (SNNPR) in Ethiopia. About 80% of the banana supplied to the Addis Ababa market is produced in Gamo Gofa through irrigation. Besides banana, the zone supplies apples and mangos to the national market. The lion’s share of irrigated banana is produced in the two low-lying districts of Arba Minch Zuria and Mirab Abaya in the zone.

The Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project is working with potential stakeholders to enhance banana value chains in these districts. The conventional banana marketing system in Mirab Abaya has been identified as a major challenge affecting the banana value chains in the district.

This story is about the participatory processes of problem identification and introduction of potential interventions to improve banana marketing in Mirab Abaya. The current state of the banana value chains in the district was evaluated through innovation platforms, focus group discussions with producers, discussions with executive committee members of primary marketing cooperatives and through field observations.

There are about 120 local traders (77 in Arba Minch Zuria and 43 in Mirab Abaya) buying bananas from the smallholder producers and selling them all to traders in other parts of the country including in Addis Ababa. Although 14 fruit and vegetable marketing cooperatives (9 in Arba Minch Zuria and 5 in Mirab Abaya districts) were established in the past seven years, only three of them (Ocholo Lante and Genta Kenchama at Arba Minch Zuria and Omolante in Mirab Abaya) offer alternative market outlets for the smallholder producers.

Banana marketing  is better in peasant associations (PAs) where these three marketing cooperatives operate since calibrated weight balances are used enabling farmers to get much better farm gate prices. Despite the huge market potential of banana, in some PAs, smallholder producers choose to grow irrigated maize on their lands because they are not benefiting economically from farming bananas.

Cognizant of the challenges in banana marketing systems, in late 2013 the LIVES project started working with the zonal and district Offices of Marketing and Cooperatives to put together a team of experts to assess marketing problems in the main banana producing peasant associations of Mirab Abaya district. The following bottlenecks were identified:

• Farmers sell banana to local traders through weight estimation, not through actual weight (except in Omo Lante PA where the marketing cooperative is more active).
• Local traders buy 8-15 bunches as one quintal while a single bunch could weigh anywhere from 25-60 kgs. This way of marketing leaves farmers highly exploited by traders and brokers.
• Producers get credit from traders. However, as the smallholder farmers are not getting credit for routine and non-guaranteed household investments, they are forced to depend on the traders to whom they sell their bananas.
• Local price of bananas is set by local traders and their brokers. The brokers lower the price of the banana significantly and set the local price without proper negotiations with farmers.
• Local traders and brokers have monopolized banana marketing and outsiders are not allowed to buy bananas.
• Individual traders collect bananas from individual farmers’ fields. There are no common banana marketing centres where buyers and sellers meet and negotiate.
• Only the Omo Lante marketing cooperative buys bananas from producers. The other four do not as their committee members have basic experience and skills in business management and creating market linkages.

The aforementioned major bottlenecks were discussed by the fruits value chain actors and service providers at a LIVES-facilitated district-level platform meeting held in December 2013. A follow up discussion was held with a group of influential authorities including officials from the district administration, zonal and district offices of Marketing and Cooperatives, district Office of Agriculture and district Office of Revenue. The officials agreed to create awareness on the major market actors, the impacts of improper marketing system and the need to establish a new marketing intervention. The district Office of Marketing and Cooperatives and the Office of Agriculture led this new intervention.

Subsequently, continuous awareness creation meetings were held with producers, traders, brokers, marketing cooperative committee members and PA administrators. The impact of improper marketing systems on banana productivity, household income and overall value chain were communicated and shared among various actors and service providers. Capacity development (awareness creation, coaching/mentoring) interventions were conducted by experts from the Office of Marketing and Cooperatives and LIVES staff. This resulted in a decision by producers and traders to reach an agreement to use well-calibrated weight balances in each PA.

By and large, the following achievements have been realised:

• Use of calibrated weight balances for banana marketing has started in nine banana producing PAs in Mirab Abaya District. The PA administrators and the development agents are providing coaching on the proper implementation of banana marketing and the benefits of using well-calibrated weight balances at PA levels.
• Legal traders from outside the district are now allowed to buy banana from farmers, marketing cooperatives or local traders.
• Three marketing cooperatives (Ankober, Moleand Kolla and Mulato) have started buying bananas from the producers and selling them to traders. With the improved support from the district Office of Marketing and Cooperatives, they are also trying to create market linkages with wholesalers in Addis Ababa and elsewhere.
• Most PAs have already allocated marketing centres that are accessible by trucks. In some of these PAs, both marketing cooperatives and traders are buying bananas at these centres. This has enabled the producers to have better access to market information and also to negotiate prices.
• Starting in January 2014, the Office of Marketing and Cooperatives started recording the daily price and volume of bananas transported from the district. Accordingly, the recorded volume of banana sold from Mirab Abaya district was 850-950 quintals per day from January – May 2014 and 500-700 quintals per day from June – August 2014. The average price of banana was 4.50 ETB (0.22$) per kilogram in January 2014 and grew to 7 ETB (0.35$) per kilogram from June – August 2014. The latter is the largest farm gate price ever in the district.
• Based on the agreements during the platform discussions, every truck has to take an exit card from the Office of Marketing and Cooperatives to enhance fair trade.
• Since January 2014, the district office of revenue has started taxing every truck 700 ETB (35$). As there are anywhere from 10 to 25 trucks driving out of the district every day, the local government is receiving increased revenue due to this intervention.

Although there are encouraging achievements so far, there are also challenges ahead in sustaining these new arrangements. For the intervention to bring sustainable impact, more needs to be done on three major aspects:

• Strengthening the marketing cooperatives and sustaining their role by developing their capacity to improve business management and market linkages.
• Building the capacity of staff of the Office of Marketing and Cooperatives to provide proper and continuous support to marketing cooperatives and traders regarding market information, creating better market linkages and regulatory services.
• Putting in place credit service provision for smallholder producers to reduce their reliance on local traders. This will increase the confidence of the smallholders on the sustainability of the marketing cooperatives.

Written by Birhanu Biazin and Tesfaye Dubale with contributions from Yoseph Mekasha.

An agricultural knowledge centre in southern Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/LIVES).

Ten years ago, access to computers, the internet and other information communication technology (ICT) tools was practically unheard of in the rural districts of Ethiopia. Conventional extension service delivery came in the form of face-to-face knowledge exchange, demonstrations, trainings and visits, handwritten reports and scant reference materials, some as old as 20 years.  However, things are changing fast. ICTs have become necessities for day-to-day work execution. Mobile phone coverage and access to computers has increased exponentially in the country in the past few years.

Agricultural technologies and innovations are widely available through the internet in different ICT formats throughout the world. To harness this potential, the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project set out to establish resource centres in district offices of agriculture in its operation sites across the country. The resource centres or agricultural knowledge centres (AKCs) as they are called in LIVES, are places where ICTs are the main sources of agricultural resources. Each of these AKCs is equipped with computers, TV/DVD combination players, printers, LCD projectors, cameras and furniture as well as printed and digital publications from the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and other partners.

Lessons from LIVES’ predecessor–the Improving the Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers (IPMS) project– played a big role in the process of setting up these centres. Of the 36 AKCs that LIVES has set up over the past year and half, the AKCs in Southern Nations and Nationalities Peoples (SNNP) region are a near perfect illustration of the process and the use of these centres.

Initially, the LIVES SNNP team described the benefits of having such centres to the district agriculture officials and followed this up with a study tour to a knowledge centre that was set up by the IPMS project in Dale District. That tour convinced the visitors of the benefits of establishing such centres. Upon completion of the study tour, rooms were allocated for the AKCs in SNNP and in the case of Bensa District, a budget of ETB 350,000 (approximately USD 17,500) was set aside for a building.

After allocation of the rooms, LIVES delivered the materials and equipment as agreed. The Office of Agriculture (OoA) assigned a knowledge centre manager who would oversee the delivery of service and use of resources. Many of these managers have full-time jobs elsewhere in the Office of Agriculture. Additionally, the OoA worked with the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) to get access to ADSL broadband internet service after agreeing that LIVES would provide financial support for the first two years after which the OoA would pay for these services.

The commitment from the LIVES zonal coordinators, focal persons and the AKC managers in SNNP has allowed the centres to provide services that were previously difficult to access. Experts come to the centres to read, watch videos, deliver/attend presentations and use digital cameras to capture activities and results in the field. For instance, the focal person in Arbegona District takes and prints pictures from the field for display on the AKC noticeboard, while others have brought back pictures from the field in Bona Zuria Woreda to share progress of their work with colleagues and supervisors. Additionally, the district agriculture office staff use the AKCs for meetings and workshops.

However, access to electricity is still patchy in all the district offices of agriculture where the AKCs are set up. There are power cuts for about 80% of the working hours in a week. To compensate for this, some AKC managers open the centres after office hours and during weekends.

Lack of education, training and skill is also a challenge that affects full use of these agricultural knowledge centres. Books or manuals and other written resources are not regularly used for day to day activities. Primarily because the reading culture is under developed as there are no such resources, and even if there were they were not easily accessible to the experts.

Also, despite opportunities to use the internet in AKCs, these services are underutilized. District agricultural experts do not use computers in day-to-day activities and many of them lack the skills in using computer-based facilities like email. Most use the internet to look for jobs or education opportunities.

To address, these gaps in computer literacy and information on what is available on the web as well as in the AKCs, the LIVES SNNP team has set up short IT courses to build the capacity of the staff in Sidama. As a result, the staff started using computers to type and print reports and other documents. The project is now working in partnership with the officials and the users to fully use the AKCs  in SNNP and other  sites.

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World Milk Day was celebrated in Hawassa city, the capital of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) in Ethiopia on 30 June 2014. Milk is an important part of a healthy balanced diet and World Milk Day is the perfect opportunity to spread word on the nutritional benefits of drinking milk. This was the first time the day was celebrated in Hawassa though in other parts of the world, the event has been observed for fourteen years.

This event was jointly organized by the Regional Bureau of Agriculture, USAID’s Agricultural Growth Program-Livestock Market Development (AGP-LMD) project, ILRI’s Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project and SNV Netherlands Development Organisation’s-EDGET project. The organizers’ aim was to:

• Increase awareness of the nutritional benefits of consuming milk and dairy products,
• Increase awareness of the need to boil/pasteurize milk,
• Inspire the government and dairy industry to organize similar events in the future in order to increase milk consumption.

Participants drawn from the Bureau of Agriculture, the Southern Agricultural Research Institute, Hawassa University, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), private dairy producers and processors, students and city residents, took park in the event.

In his keynote address, the deputy director of the Regional Livestock Development Agency highlighted the major reasons for the low milk consumption in the country and requested all governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to engaged in dairy development and service provisions to bring about changes in attitude, create demand for consumption of boiled and pasteurized milk, improve milk supply by improving dairy value chains, which contributes to the health, productivity of citizens. He further stressed that the region is committed to support initiatives and events such as the World Milk Day.

Traditional music, dancing, poetry readings, question/answer sessions and educative dialogues took place during the event to convey messages on the health benefits of drinking milk as well as the importance of boiling/pasteurizing dairy products. More than 3,000 brochures and flyers highlighting the objectives of World Milk Day, the importance of milk consumption, the nutritional value of milk and the need for boiling/pasteurizing raw milk were distributed to participants and Hawassa residents in the four areas where the event took place. Many participants also enjoyed refreshing pasteurized whole milk and yoghurt that was brought to the event by private producers and processors for promotional purposes.

Debub Television program of the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) and FM 100.9 Radio broadcast the event live to the wider public.

World Milk Day was also celebrated in Tigray, Amhara and Oromia regions with the involvement of the respective LIVES staff  in those areas.

Last year (2013), the World School Milk Day was celebrated for the first time at Nigist Fura Elementary and Secondary School in Hawassa  on 25 November 2013. The event was jointly organized by the Agricultural Growth Program-Livestock Market Development (AGP-LMD) project of USAID and the LIVES project of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

The World School Milk Day aims to promote the nutritional benefits of drinking milk, encourage young children to drink milk and urge families to provide their children with milk. About 2,335 people attended that event, of which about 65% (30% male and 35% female) were students, 2.57% (24 male and 36 female) were teachers and school administrators, 30% were parents of the students and 2.43% were public stakeholders. Milk producers and processors, distributors and other individuals also attended.

Contributed by Yoseph Mekasha and the SNNPRS LIVES team.

Women all over Ethiopia process milk into butter in rural households, perhaps with the exception of areas where consumption of milk in coffee or tea is common.

The LIVES project’s baseline surveys results also indicate that most households sell small quantities in local markets and this constitutes one of the income sources for women.

Butter processing is based on age old traditions with local churns made of pottery or other local materials. Women process soured milk which is accumulated over a 2 to 5 day period. Because most households produce only small quantities of milk each day, women in some locations form groups to collectively process the soured milk from the group members in one churn. This reduces the individual labour time spent on churning by each woman.

Nevertheless, the volume of soured milk churned are usually small (less than 10 litres) and time-consuming in terms of processing time per litre of milk or kg of butter. Many years ago, ILCA adjusted the local churn and developed a mechanism to reduce labour and increase butter extraction. However efficiency gains were limited, which probably contributed to low adoption rates. Some NGOs and companies introduced hand-operated bigger-sized stainless steel butter churns (up to 20 litres). However these were targeted to small-scale private and/or cooperative dairy processing companies in and around district towns. Adoption in rural areas is zero, since the churns are relatively expensive and therefore uneconomical for use by private households or small informal groups.

Comparing household-level butter processing methods in rural areas with the small-scale commercial butter processing in (peri-)urban areas shows up interesting differences. In rural areas, the whole (soured) milk is processed, while in urban areas only the cream (fluid) is processed. The cream is removed from the milk with a mechanical cream separator. Applying this principle of (sour) fat/cream churning in rural areas would be possible without the use of the cream separator, since fat/cream would naturally settle on top of the milk over time and can be removed manually. Big open containers would be required however to create and remove the cream manually. The collected cream can then be transferred to the churners and be processed into butter. The narrow neck of the traditional churn may be unsuitable to pull out larger quantities of butter extracted from cream. We will test the validity of this assumption at a later stage.

Given these facts, the LIVES project imported a cheaper, 10 litre hard plastic new butter churn, with a large opening, capable of churning cream as well as milk. The first test took place in Arbagona District in the Sidama Zone.

The LIVES team used seven litres of soured milk for each churn and conducted churning with the participation of farmers and extension staff. There were some differences in churning time and butter extraction, but the magnitude of the differences was small. On average, about 450 gr of butter was produced from 7 litres of soured milk in about 51 minutes with the traditional churn and in 66 minutes with the new churn. However, using the new churn to process 7 litres of cream obtained from 50 litres of milk resulted in 2.3 kg of butter. Processing time was 65 minutes, which is about the same as the time required to produce 450 gr of butter from 7 litres of soured milk. The participants made several observations on the new churn, including; lack of ventilation hole in the churn, butter granules sticking to the (inside) wall of the churn, shape of the rotor/agitator insufficient to churn milk/cream in the upper part of the container. Also churning cream was harder for the women than churning (soured) milk.

The implications of the quantitative data observed so far suggest that processing cream from 50 litres of milk with the new churn results in less butter (2.3 kg) than processing 50 litres of soured milk (3.2 kg) with the new or traditional churn. However big gains can be made in (female) labour savings i.e. 65 minutes to process the cream of 50 litres of milk using the new churn, as compared to 364 minutes to process 50 litres of soured milk using the traditional churn. Expressed in terms of processing time per litre of milk and kg of butter, the new churn takes respectively 1.3 min/l of milk and 28.3 min/kg of butter, while the traditional soured milk method with traditional churn will take 7.3 min/l milk and 113.3 min/kg of butter.

These potential gains should be discussed in the rural communities to create interest in small scale processing of butter from soured cream by either womens’ groups or private individuals. Possible uses of the remaining soured skimmed milk should also be taken into consideration when discussing the business model.

The lessons from the qualitative assessments we learned so far are that technical adjustments should be made to the new churn to improve its efficiency in terms of time (and ease of use by women) and butter extraction. Additional testing will take place in other LIVES sites and be reported in our butter blog!!!

Story by Yoseph Mekasha, Tesfaye Shewage, Solomon Gizaw and Dirk Hoekstra

Ethiopia’s millions of cattle owners face challenges to increase the productivity of their animals. They often struggle to keep them healthy and well-fed. Managing the quality of the breed is one of the challenges that is getting better, thanks to improvements in the ways that artificial insemination (AI) services are provided.

Traditionally, AI agents travel around rural areas servicing cattle. This has often been more miss than hit, and cows often do not get pregnant. When they do, the desired female calves don’t always appear.

In its last years, the ‘Improving the Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers’ (IPMS) project initiated a series of interventions to try and improve the ways that AI services are delivered. It also sought to increase the chances of success, through hormone synchronization, and female calves, through sex-fixing.

This short film introduces the approach followed and the initial results.

The International Livestock Research Institute’s Azage Tegegne, who leads the Livestock and Irrigation Value chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project has been honoured by the Ethiopian Government for his role in improving dairy cattle genetics and dairy value chain development in the country.

His action research in ‘the application of hormone assisted estrous synchronization and mass insemination’ technology to enhance cattle genetic improvement through improved reproductive performance’ was recognised by H.E Ato Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, at the 5th national award on science, technology, innovation and research. The award ceremony, held at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa on 15 November 2014, was attended by high-level government officials, diplomats, representatives of the international community, family members of the awardees and other invited guests.

Azage’s research was part of the Improving Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers (IPMS) project, which brought together researchers from the Tigray Agricultural Research Institute, Tigray Agriculture and Rural Development Office and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in implementing the genetic improvement work in Wukro, Adigrat, Adwa and in Axum, Ethiopia. Azage was the principal researcher in the project and also led capacity development of regional experts and artificial insemination technicians. Azage secured finance from ILRI to carry out the work as well.

Successes from this project are now being scaled out to other parts of the country including the Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s regions.

Azage, along with LIVES staff, continues to support regional partners in capacity development and providing technical advice for the continued improvement of dairy genetics in Ethiopia.

The award ceremony also recognized students and teachers, trainees and trainers, researchers and innovators who have registered outstanding innovation model and technology in science and mathematics, technical and vocational education, research and innovation in Ethiopia.

Read a related story from LIVES blog: More money, milk and meat: Mass artificial insemination for Ethiopian cattle

National media coverage of the event

የቴክኖሎጂ አቅምን ለማሳደግ ለሚደረጉ ጥረቶች ድጋፍ ይደረጋል፡-ጠ/ሚ ኃይለማርያም

PM awards 268 Ethiopians for outstanding achievements in science, technology and innovation