The capacity to innovate by the value chain actors was identified as a key factor for a participatory smallholder market oriented agricultural development. The project therefore focused on strengthening innovation capacity of farmers, pastoralists, community-based and private sector organizations, and agriculture and natural resource management public organizations, through technical and entrepreneurial skills development and, facilitating linkages between relevant actors.
The various approaches and methods used are briefly described.
MSc/BSc Training
The project established MSc/BSc fellowship program to enhance skills of the staff from the MoARD (federal, regional, zonal and PLW level) and Ethiopian Agricultural Research System in areas which complement existing technical skills. These include agricultural economics, marketing, extension, gender and knowledge management. Students are enrolled in local universities, mostly in specially designed summer programs which enable them to continue their normal work during the rest of the year. The project aims for a balanced enrollment of male and female students. A total of around 130 staff are presently enrolled in this program. As a by-product of the fellowships initiative, the interaction between project staff and the universities and Agricultural Technical Vocational and Educational Training Colleges (ATVETs) was greatly enhanced providing the project with opportunities to influence curricula and course work of Agricultural Universities.
In-service training
Most of the subject matter specialists (SMS) and development agents (DAs) in the PLWs have been trained on topics related to crops, livestock and natural resource management with little or no emphasis on extension and related topics. The project therefore embarked on an in-service training program aimed at building the capacity of the staff on topics such as participatory extension, mainstreaming of gender issues and HIV/AIDS risk mitigation, marketing extension and the use of relevant computer programs and Internet use. The project prepared and published training materials tailored to the Ethiopian and project context, which subsequently can support capacity development outside the project implementation sites.
In service training on topics that enhance technical skills on market-oriented agriculture is organized with the help of partner institutions, including research, regional BoARD and Universities.Selected lead men and women farmers are selected for such training sessions.
Training was also provided to staff from the credit organizations to facilitate business plan development for the project’s credit innovation fund.
The project also organizes training on results-based monitoring and evaluation, rapid market assessment, linking farmers to markets, business plan development, environmental assessment and monitoring, and GIS to enhance the capacity of specialized staff at PLW, zonal and regional level. Training materials have been developed for several of these topics.
Capacity development of farmers and private sector partners.
Capacity development of farmers and private sector partners for commercial agricultural production is supported by the project with the help of partner institutions. Training is often practical and hands-on and includes field visits and is conducted in Farmer Training Centers (FTCs) by DAs, subject matter specialists and/or research staff. Joint trainings of husbands and wives are organized in some PLWs. While most training is targeted at commodity producers, some trainings target specialized producers of inputs for these crops. These include i) nursery operators for fruits and coffee and ii) seed producers for cereals, beans/pulses and vegetables iii) paravets, iv)private crop spraying and v) irrigation pump maintenance. In marketing and processing, the project facilitates training for small scale dairy processing and marketing and small scale processing and retail marketing of agricultural produce.
Partnerships/linkages
Partnerships/linkages are considered to be a key ingredient for the development of market-oriented agricultural development. The main functions of such partnerships are i) to share knowledge and learn together and thus synthesize “new” knowledge and ii) to facilitate governance for the development of a commodity or program. The project has been doing this in a formal way by establishing Woreda Advisory and Learning Committee (WALCs) in each of the PLWs. These committees are comprised of stakeholders involved in the value chain and their responsibilities include guidance for the program development, including some budgetary responsibility and stimulation of learning and knowledge sharing between partners including organization of seminars and workshops. Besides these formal structures, the project also encourages more ad hoc linkages for specific commodities (also referred to as commodity platforms) amongst rural producers (marketing groups), traders and/or input suppliers. In addition, Regional Advisory and Learning Committees (RALCs) have been established in each of the four regional states to provide overall guidance and follow-up of project activities with the intention of scaling up the experiences acquired at PLW level.
