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Location: Ethiopia

For more information, contact CIMMYT’s Ethiopia office.

NuME set to boost nutrition of Ethiopian children

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NuME9During 26-28 March 2012, CIMMYT scientists, partners, and collaborators met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Inception Planning Workshop of the NuME project. NuME (Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia) is a new five-year USD 13 million project that aims to significantly reduce malnutrition, especially among young children, and increase food security and household income of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Ethiopia through the widespread adoption, production, and utilization of quality protein maize (QPM). QPM contains more than twice as much lysine and tryptophan as conventional maize, giving its protein a nutritive value that is roughly 90% that of milk.

The project, led by CIMMYT and supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), is being implemented in collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the Ministry of Health, the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI), Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), Sasakawa Global 2000 (SG2000), other NGOs, universities, and public and private seed companies. The purpose of the meeting was to present the approved project to partners; review, organize, and agree on the project’s management structure; review and agree on partner roles and responsibilities; and develop detailed work plans and budgets.

Project coordinator S. Twumasi-Afriyie gave an overview of the status of QPM in Ethiopia and pointed out that NuME was building on the achievements of the previous and largely successful CIDA-funded QPMD project that was implemented in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda during 2003-2010.

Underscoring NuME’s importance, Twumasi said that diets in eastern and central Africa are largely based on maize, for it provides up to 80% of the calories consumed and is a primary weaning food for children. However, it is poor in two essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan, putting infants who consume maize without protein supplements at risk for malnutrition and stunted growth and development. The problem is more acute in Ethiopia, where 47% of children are stunted, 38% are underweight, and 11% suffer from wasting.

Consequently, the project has targeted areas with high maize production and consumption, areas where farmers grow BH660 or other conventional maize varieties that now have QPM versions, and most importantly, areas with high malnutrition, according to Hugo De Groote, CIMMYT socio-economist.

Andreas Oswald, SAA director of crop productivity enhancement, outlined the strategies planned for demonstrating new QPM technologies, improved crop management practices, and post-harvest handling and processing to farmers, and for improving their knowledge and skills. Increasing the participation of women in NuME activities and identifying ways to ensure that they benefit substantively from QPM technologies are key goals of the project.

The project will also partner with Farm Radio International (FRI), which will work with Ethiopian radio stations to develop a gender sensitive campaign to help women and men farmers gain a better understanding of nutrition and protein, and to raise awareness of QPM and other strategies for improving the nutrition and health of families, especially children.

Policy recommendations to improve the seed sector in eastern and southern Africa

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ESAgroupDuring 26-27 October 2011, seed policy experts met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a workshop on “Maize seed sector development in eastern and southern Africa”, to chart the way forward for the regions’ seed systems. The workshop was organized by CIMMYT as part of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, and brought together permanent secretaries of agriculture ministries, members of parliament, seed companies, seed traders associations, heads of research organizations, scientists, and seed regulators from eight of the project countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

The experts reviewed the results of the 2010/2011 CIMMYT seed sector survey, and assessed the progress made since the last regional policy workshop in 2008, and the survey of 2007/2008. Among the noteworthy achievements was the regional harmonization of seed laws as well as an increasing evidence base to inform policy. Lively discussions focused on five themes: variety development and release; seed production; seed marketing, distribution and storage; farmer adoption and seed use; and seed laws and private sector participation.

To increase effectiveness and productivity of the seed sector, the experts made several policy recommendations:

  • International and regional seed laws should be domesticated and harmonized, and embedded within existing legislation.
  • To reduce trade in fake seed, competition commissions should be set up and anti-trust laws enacted, including Kenya’s Anti-counterfeit Act, and holograms should be used for seed packaging.
  • Smart subsidies with a clear exit strategy, in conjunction with services such as extension education and good agronomy, would be effective in increasing farmers’ access to new drought tolerant maize varieties.
  • Seed availability could be increased through irrigated seed production on more land, and credited finance guarantees through national governments.
  • The liberalization of seed production, certification, and trade would improve the efficiency of seed sectors and ensure that farmers have access to the best varieties for improved farm incomes and food security.

Summing up the outcomes from the workshop, Hon. John Mututho, Kenyan Member of Parliament and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Agriculture Committee said: “The experts at this meeting have accurately coined the policy issues dealing with seed production, marketing and trade. These policy recommendations should be adopted by the [Kenyan] Executive and Parliament as the basis for developing the Kenyan Seed Act, to be passed in 2012.”

Conservation agriculture trials impress in southern Ethiopia

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In Hawassa region, southern Ethiopia, maize yields have been steadily declining. The deep-rooted agricultural practices of low farm input application and removal of crop residues to feed livestock have damaged the land: soil is eroded, nutrients and organic matter are depleted.

But change is afoot. In Ethiopia, the Sustainable intensification of maize-legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative is being implemented by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the Southern Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), with technical support from CIMMYT and financial assistance from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). Last year, SIMLESA conducted on-farm trials using conservation agriculture (CA) techniques: minimum tillage, crop residue management, intercropping/crop rotation (with maize and haricot beans) and participatory variety selection trials.

One of the farmers taking part in the trials was Yohanes Gudeta. He planted four CA trial plots: sole maize (BH-543), sole haricot bean (rotation), sole maize (rotation) and maize intercropped with haricot bean. In comparing these with the trial plot he farmed using traditional techniques, Gudeta observed that “the maize under CA is very robust and green, an indication of far better yields than we usually harvest.” Next planting season, Gudeta plans to increase his area under CA from trial plots to 0.5 ha.

According to Dagne Wagery, SIMLESA National Coordinator for Ethiopia, the trials aim to demonstrate that practicing CA allows for enhanced productivity and profitability of maize and legumes, whilst decreasing production risks such as abiotic and biotic constraints. Gudeta agrees: “soil erosion is a big problem in this area considering that we have sandy soils. The plots under CA are not affected by soil erosion,” he said. Farmers participating in the trials have also found that CA is less labour intensive, largely due to the Roundup herbicide used in CA, which controls grasses as well as weeds.

The success of the trials encouraged EIAR and CIMMYT to organize a farmers’ field day to demonstrate the performance of CA technologies, which was held in the Hawassa Zuria district on 16 August. Farmers from the other SIMLESA districts of Meskan and Misrak Badawacho attended, alongside agriculture officers, developments agents, seed dealers, and researchers.

The visitors were impressed with the visible results of CA, especially in the aspect of intercropping maize and beans, as this provides additional crop yield from the same piece of land. “Obtaining additional yield, be it maize or beans from the same piece of land is a boost to food security and land use efficiency,” said Solomon Admassu , SIMLESA Hawassa Site Coordinator and organizer of the field day. Following the success of these trials, the stakeholders have pledged to increase the dissemination and adoption of CA for enhanced food security in Ethiopia.

New collaborative maize and legume project kicks off in Africa

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A collaboration of national agricultural research programs has launched a new project to improve farm-level food security and productivity in eastern and southern Africa. The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is a four-year project with various partner institutions. It is led by CIMMYT and funded by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

At the end of March, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) hosted a SIMLESA country planning meeting. The goals of the meeting were to plan SIMLESA project activities, develop detailed work plans and budgets, and to identify additional possible partnerships. Abera Deressa, Ethiopia’s state minister of agriculture, opened the meeting and congratulated CIMMYT for being a model for partnerships and for enhancing agricultural research and collaborations in sub-Saharan Africa. He was followed by Adefris Teklewold, director of crops research at EIAR, who welcomed all the participants to the meeting.

Next was a presentation by John Dixon, ACIAR advisor. Dixon gave an overview of the project’s origins; discussed the role of ACIAR and other Australian institutions; and emphasized the importance of integration and innovative systems to achieve real impact and meet SIMLESA objectives. This was followed by an address on CIMMYT’s commitment to SIMLESA and the region, given by Bekele Shiferaw, director of CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program.

The meeting continued with SIMLESA program coordinator Mulugetta Mekuria. Mekuria presented a profile of the project and its current status, as well as expected outputs of the planning meeting. Several other participants also gave presentations.

A similar meeting was held during 19-21 February 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. This was the joint country planning meeting for Kenya and Tanzania, hosted by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). More than 35 participants from Kenya, Tanzania, CIMMYT, ICRISAT, and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) attended the planning workshop.

Major SIMLESA partners include national agricultural research institutes from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique, along with the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development, and Innovation (QDEEDI), Murdoch University in Australia, ASARECA, ICRISAT, and the Agricultural Research Council of South Africa (ARC).

Sasakawa and partners impacts

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A website designed to track the effectiveness of efforts to improve farmers’ livelihoods in Ethiopia and Uganda is available to the public and the CIMMYT community at http://sg2000ia.cimmyt.org/. The site provides information that is used to monitor knowledge from and assess impacts of the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA)— particularly the Sasakawa-Global 2000 Program—and partners on their capacity building efforts and dissemination of technologies for improved cropping practices in Africa.

This impact-assessing project has been in place since 2006 and focuses on maize and wheat production; conservation agriculture; tillage technology; and post-harvest, agroprocessing, and improved marketing technologies for other relevant crops in local farming systems. The corresponding website, developed by Roberto La Rovere and launched in 2008, has information on the project’s background, approach, and key contributors. It also contains peer-reviewed journal paper, socioeconomic reports, datasets, interactive Google Earth maps, and other collection and management tools.

Innovative partnerships boost livestock-maize systems in eastern Africa

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In recent times, in eastern Africa, arable land has become more scarce and livestock production has gained more ground, making maize more important than ever—both as a source of food and feed—in highly intensified crop-livestock farming systems. In an innovative partnership, CIMMYT, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners from universities, research centers, and ministries of agriculture in Ethiopia, Tanzania , Kenya, and Germany have worked together to develop and evaluate dual-purpose maize cultivars to meet the increasing need for livestock fodder in a project funded by BMZ from 2005 to 2009. The partnership—new to all those involved—brought together socio-economists, animal scientists, maize breeders, and spatial analysts.

Recently, CIMMYT and ILRI organized an end-of-project workshop themed “Improving the Value of Maize Stover as Livestock Feed” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for stakeholders to review results of the project and agree on future directions. Maize stover is the leftover leaves, stalks, husks, and cobs after a harvest.

“Livestock is important in Ethiopia—contributing 40% to our gross domestic product (GDP). Available grazing land has decreased while the area under maize has increased. Therefore, stovers have become an important source of fodder,” said Adefris Teklewold, crop research process director at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), who opened the workshop. “However, maize stover has low nutritive value and this project has the potential of increasing its value as livestock feed.”

Researchers found that that farmers value grain yield much more than stover fodder value, and would adopt an improved variety only if it gave reasonable yields. Nevertheless, farmers do recognize differences among varieties in the fodder value of stover, particularly in traits such as ‘stay-green,’ softness of stalks, and palatability. After grain yield and food related attributes, stover biomass is an important characteristic upon which farmers base their selection of varieties.

The project successfully explored the potential to improve maize stover for livestock fodder and identified traits that could be used by breeding programs to do so. These traits would serve as additional ‘value added’ release criteria rather than requirements for release to facilitate optimization of whole plant utilization. To adopt and implement these findings will require more widespread awareness among actors in the food-feed value chain, including government extension workers, private seed companies, and farmers so that breeding for improved stover quality can be integrated in national maize breeding programs. Workshop participants also recognized competition for other uses of stover, such as fuel and fencing, as well as its importance in soil conservation. As Teklewold advised, “Reducing soil degradation and erosion from the hillsides and sloping fields on which much of Ethiopian agriculture is practiced is an urgent need. Reduced tillage and residue conservation are crucial to this task.” Participants were left with the challenge of how to reconcile the competing demands for crop residues in maize-livestock systems.

CIMMYT strengthens its socioeconomic presence in Ethiopia

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Girma1Girma Tesfahun, post doctoral fellow based at CIMMYT’s office in Addis Ababa, was elected president of the Agricultural Economics Society of Ethiopia (AESE) for the next two years. The AESE’s general assembly elected Tesfahun at their 12th annual conference from 14-15 August 2009 in Addis Ababa. The executive committee has five members and includes senior economists from universities, national agricultural research programs, the private sector, and staff from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) who are based in Addis Ababa.

“This appointment will help CIMMYT strengthen its collaboration with Ethiopian agricultural economists,” said Roberto La Rovere, CIMMYT impacts specialist, who recently relocated to Addis Ababa to support regional impact assessment efforts. “It may also provide opportunities for publishing Ethiopia-relevant work and facilitate partnerships with other research and development players in the region, especially given the new strength of the CIMMYT socioeconomic presence in Addis Ababa.” CIMMYT’s Olaf Erenstein also moved to Addis Ababa this year to fill the agricultural economist position within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Project.

Conservation agriculture course at El BatĂĄn

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Between 26 May and 27 June 2008 CIMMYT El Batán hosted a five-week course in conservation agriculture (CA) for visiting scientists, entitled “Laying the ground for sustainable and productive cropping systems.” The eight participants came from China, Ethiopia, and Romania for intensive training in CA and resource conserving technologies in irrigated and rainfed wheat and maize production systems, including reduced tillage and crop residue management strategies.

Many CIMMYT specialists contributed to the course: “It was a very holistic approach, with diverse content from a number of disciplines—from breeders, soil specialists, agronomists, crop protection people, and so on,” said Tesfay Araya, from Ethiopia. He will be the first conservation agriculture specialist in northern Ethiopia, and is keen to introduce this interdisciplinary way of working. “I saw people here working together with good communication,” he said. “That’s the most important thing, and it’s very unique. It’s one lesson I learned.”

Another important element of the course was hands-on learning: the trainees participated in the ongoing activities of CIMMYT’s Cropping Systems Management team at El Batán and at the Toluca research station, and in nearby farmers’ fields, developing the skills for trial planning, management, and monitoring. Each participant also had to define a clear research objective and draft a paper during the course, and the results will be combined in a special publication. “We learned skills in publishing, writing, reviewing data
we didn’t miss anything,” said Tesfay Araya.

For Zhang Bin, from China, seeing the way CIMMYT researchers communicated with farmers was food for thought: “maybe we can do more to transfer conservation agriculture,” he said. “When I go back I will do research on conservation agriculture, and if I have good results I will demonstrate it to farmers and try to transfer the technology to them.”Between 1996 and 2008 over 30 visiting scientists and 86 trainees from 26 countries participated in long-term courses and research on zero-tillage and bed planting conducted at CIMMYT’s El Batán and Obregón research stations in Mexico.

(Source: Training Office databases.)

Getting our message to journalists

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Maize breeder, Dan Makumbi and writer-editor, Anne Wangalachi of CIMMYT in Nairobi, attended a workshop organized by the Reuters Foundation and CGIAR Media Unit on “Reporting Climate Change in Africa” this past Thursday. Thirteen journalists working in both print and electronic media participated in the training workshop. They came from Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia and Uganda. The purpose was to sensitize and educate them about current issues surrounding climate change and particularly its implications for livelihoods and food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dan Makumbi gave a well-received presentation on Drought Tolerant Maize (DTM) which drew a lot of interest, particularly with respect to potential yield improvement and fertilizer x DTM interactions. Also the issue of who had responsibility for creating awareness of new DTM varieties with farmers was raised. It was agreed that the journalists can greatly help with this. Many of the journalists are expected to write stories based on what they learned at the workshop.

DTMA meeting

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The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) team held its first project review and planning meeting from 3-7 September in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During the first three days, staff from CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), together with the project’s advisory board and representatives from the donor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, documented work completed during the first 9 months of the project. The reports covered everything from breeding trials to molecular techniques, seed systems, and livelihoods surveys.

Maize is arguably sub-Saharan Africa’s most important food crop. Erratic and unpredictable rains in many maize-growing regions of Africa have resulted in major crop failures. The DTMA project is working to improve the performance of maize in low-rainfall seasons, giving resource-poor maize farmers a better chance during times of drought.

National project partners joined for the last two days of the meeting to discuss their accomplishments and help set future priorities. In total nearly 60 researchers from Africa and Mexico participated in the meeting. One thing that was clear was the close cooperation and coordination between the CIMMYT and IITA maize programs. In fact Paula Bramel, Deputy DG, Research for Development (shown in photo, left), thanked CIMMYT for inviting IITA to be a project partner and praised how well the partnership was working.

David Bergvinson, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called the DTMA a flagship project for the new agricultural development initiative of the Foundation.

Highland maize takes off in Ethiopia

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CIMMYT staff in Ethiopia recently participated in field days organized by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) showcasing newly-released highland maize varieties based on CIMMYT materials. The first, held near Ambo on 14 October, was attended by Strafford Twumasi-Afriyie, CIMMYT maize breeder based in Ethiopia. Some 1000 people attended the second field day near Bu’i on 21 October, including Twumasi and Dennis Friesen, agronomist and CIMMYT liaison officer in Ethiopia.

“There is great enthusiasm from farmers, especially those who could not believe that maize could be grown at their altitude [about 2,700 m]. There is strong demand to further expand the technology next year,” says Friesen.

These new varieties are the result of a program of collaborative research begun in 1998 by CIMMYT and EIAR to develop maize varieties suitable for the highlands of Ethiopia and other central and eastern African countries. Considerable investment from both partners led to the release in 2005 of one new hybrid variety, AMH800 (known locally as Arganne), and one open-pollinated variety, AMB02SYN1, known as Hora.

Around 550 farmers have participated with EIAR in scaling up, including around 60 who have planted demonstration plots in the Bu’i area and similar numbers near Ambo.

The field days were held to demonstrate the new highland maize varieties’ performance and potential to help lift farmers out of poverty. Farmers, researchers, cooperative and union members, administrators, educators, and development partners have all attended and shared their experiences. A number of dignitaries, including members of parliament, were also present.

Message from Masa: Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia

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I visited Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia this week. In Kenya I attended the IRMA Project Executive Committee (ExCo) meeting. We had interesting and critical negotiations to gain access to a new Bt event from a private company and thus enable the development of a robust insect management strategy for poor farmers based on a humanitarian use exception.

I visited the DGs of the three national agriculture research systems, Executive Secretary of ASARECA, and the Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia. In addition to appreciating our past and on-going partnerships, I discussed with them ways we could work together on two specific projects—the Global Rust Initiative and Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa. Two multi-million dollar proposals have been requested by donor agencies and if they are accepted, swift implementation based on partnership will be extremely important.

These discussions demonstrated again that CIMMYT’s style of partnership is highly appreciated by our NARS partners. We are their preferred partner because:

  • We consult with them (as opposed to deciding unilaterally).
  • We give them due credit after working together (as opposed to over-claiming credit).
  • We deliver on the ground (as opposed to just talk and meetings).
  • We support their capacity building (as opposed to our taking over their role).
  • We engage in a continuous professional relationship as colleagues with former trainees (as opposed to one-shot training course).

Those elements are building blocks for long-term relationships based on trust and respect. We will continue to build our future and deliver our mission as the preferred partner. With this trip I was also able to complete my promised series of visits to all CIMMYT’s regional locations.