AgriProFocus Ethiopia

Annual Network Day 11th December 2015

Achievements in 2015

Achievements 2015

1. Global level, members, online platform

2. Agribusiness & Finance Fairs

3. Business drinks

4. Innovation Communities on Gender, Youth & Agric.

5. National Soil Campaign

6. Contract Farming workshops and manual

7. FSRE learning agenda

8. EKN learning agenda

AgriProFocus Global Networks

APF Modalities

AgriProFocus Online platform!

http://agriprofocus.com

The Ethiopia Network Page http://agriprofocus.com/ethiopia

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

952 975 1000 1029 1067 1121 1139 1144 1164 1185 1211

164 230 329 358 397 419 433 835 864 892 926

26 45 57 75 90 110 126 136 161 186 208

Members APF online platform

Months

Online

Facebook

Twitter

2. AgriBusiness Finance Fairs (Batu)

• Batu Finance Fair was organized in March in collaboration with OXFAM-UK

• Over 300 people joined (> half farmers)

• 16 organizations exhibited

• 6 papers presented

• Farmers took the stage to speak about the financial challenges they face

• Field visits to women farmers on onion seed

• See: http://agriprofocus.com/post/551c5e61d58d83590d3a9680

Agribusiness Finance Fair (Batu)

3. Business Drinks

• 5 Business Drinks organized • In collaboration with ABSF (and CIC) • Over 50 people attend each time • Some 10 people do pitches on each event • Next one in January

4. Innovation Communities

• Gender:

Home gardens excursions with Tufts university network; to Zway with Send-a-Cow for integrated household approach, and to Solulta with ISAPSO on self help groups

Interviews for case-study book on gender in Ethiopia

• Youth & Agriculture

3 workshops leading to conclusion that we need multi- stakeholder conference in 2017 to create synergy

Pilot in Wukro; not successful but lessons learnt are useful

• Soil Health: see Ethiopian soil campaign

• Farm- Firm relationships: see contract farming

5. National Soil Campaign • 2015 is the International Year of the Soil !

• Soil Health IC partners organised for a very successful campaign, led by MoA, for different stakeholders with various events and a radio program for farmers.

• Main sponsors : APF, GIZ, ISD, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and Tufts University (USAID). Total budget was 160,000 Euro

• The report (glossy, February 2016) will be more of a manual with yellow pages on who does what in soil health management in Ethiopia.

• See http://agriprofocus.com/ethiopian-soil-campaign

4. Contract Farming Manual

• Gerrit?!

What happened in the soil campaign?

Purpose: awareness raising and creating synergy

• Q&A on TV by prof Tekalign (public via TV)

• Public lecture , AA Univ. by prof Tekalign (100 students)

• Press conference Nov. 4 (public, 6 media)

• Stakeholder workshop Nov 5-6 (Govn’t & Research: 70)

• SOIL WEEK – opening National Theatre (public, 800)

• SOIL W. – workshop (professionals, students, 70)

• SOIL W. – three field visits (farmers, profess., research, 3x100)

• SOIL W.- visit locations (professionals & students 7x 15)

• SOIL DAY – Dec.4-5 (professionals, govn’t, students, 120)

• Regional events (farmers, professionals, govn’t, research, 7 x 80 in Mekele, Axum, Dessie, D.Berhan,D.Maros, B.Dar,Jimma,

• Radio Programme in all regions (xx thousands of farmers)

• TOTAL: over 2,000 people participated.

How to mainstream Soil Health Management?

1. Continue Soil Campaign in 2016/17 = raising awareness on the importance of good soil health management

2. Continue the APF Soil Health IC = exchange knowledge & experience, create synergy & collaboration between stakeholders, through workshops & online.

3. The agricultural sub-committee of the parliament has to recognize healthy soils as the driving force of GTP II.

4. National coordinated research programme for soil health management (CGIAR?)

5. Education: primary, secondary and higher learning institutions need to include soil health courses and involve youths

Soil- Topics for coming years

1. More use of (and participative research into) organic & bio-fertilizer

2. Adopt ‘Climate Smart’ technologies & conservation agriculture techniques appropriate for Ethiopia

3. Identify drivers and inhibitors for adoption of proven technologies

4. Make farmer peer groups, for joint experimentation, experience sharing, learning

6. Guide on Contract Farming • August 2014: field visit and workshop with SupHort

• Oct. 2014: Analytical framework and select 8 cases

• Jan. 2015: Short training of writers

• Febr. : a new partner joined: LandAc

• March & August 2105: workshops with case writers to discuss issues and draw conclusions

• Another new partner joined: C4C of SNV/Agriterra

• Training of APF members, ATA and LandAc

• Now: polish eight cases and formulate final draft

• 2016: Publish Guide; organise ToT & dissemination

7. FSRE learning agenda • 39 FSRE-innovation fund winners since 2013

• APF formulated Learning Questions for them

• Half of them were visited this year.

• Training on marketing, value chain finance and contract farming was combined with a field visit

• Five winners selected for in depth support: honey, apple, mushrooms, poultry and silk

• Three of these linked to ICCO Agri-Business Booster

• Presently: prepare book on innovations (10 cases)

• 2016: dialogue with ICCO & embassy on next phase.

8. EKN &FDOV learning agenda • On request of EKN, APF organises 4 learning events

for all Dutch funded Food Security projects . Two events are on streamlining reporting and topics like

nutrition and gender

Two events are on peer learning; next one on Dec. 16

• In October we facilitated a 2-days workshop with 85 participants from 25 Dutch projects (FDOV, EKN, PSI). Potential topics for next workshops : Challenges on import goods

Access to land

Crosscutting: climate change mitigation

Access to finance

Gender approaches (with the booklet)