Capacity Building and Scaling of Forage Seeds Supply Systems for Livestock Value Chains in Ethiopia

1. Capacity Building and Scaling of Forage
Seeds Supply Systems for Livestock
Value Chains in Ethiopia
Million Gebreyes
Kindu Mekonnen
AICCRA Supervision Mission
Presentation, October 18, 2021, Addis
Ababa

2. Framing context (Houzer, E. and Scoones, I. 2021)
- Intensified calls for reduction of animal-source foods
- This is high-profile debate with patchy evidence
- Lumps: low impact extensive systems with high
impact intensive industrial systems
- Ignores: The importance of high-density animal
protein for nutrition in many parts of the world
- Remedy: People centered intensive/extensive
system
- Entry for climate action: Forage improvement

3. Ethiopia’s forage seed sector (Turner,
Duncan and Assefa 2020)
- Livestock are the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy
- Productivity remains low, for lack of quality feed
- Over 90% of feed is natural pasture and crop
residue
- ILRI released over 50 high quality forage crop
varieties
- Adoption remain low
- The country CRGE document identified improved
forage crops as its climate action
- Forage seeds remain to be the most critical
constraint

4. Ethiopia’s forage seed sector (ATA 2017)
- Forage seed typologies
- Formal: Standard certified system
- Semi-formal: Producer centered QDS system
- Informal: Farmer-farmer, uncertified
- National seed strategy: Pluralistic approach,
blending formal, semi-formal and informal

5. AR forage seed production
experiences (Mekonnen et al 2021)
- The formal forage seed system does not exist in
Ethiopia
- AR focused on strengthening the informal system
- Tested Farmer Training Center based, model farmer
based, farmer association/cooperative based
approaches
- Stimulated demand
- Built technical capacity
- Wider scaling requires
- Intensifying support for informal systems

6. AICCRA/AR/Other ILRI Scaling
Interventions
Aspect Issues Interventions needed AICCRA/AR/Other ILRI
interventions
Policy • Free distribution of
forage seeds
• High cost of forage seed
• Limited seed certification
• Multi-stakeholder
engagement
• Pragmatic seed
certification
• National Learning
Alliance on forage seed
• Mainstreaming quality
declared forage seed
production
Technical • Capacity gap on forage
seed production
• Capacity building
trainings
• Technical trainings on
climate smart forage
production
Business • High cost of production
• Unstructured market
• Structuring demand
and supply
• Coordination
• Strengthening forage
producers' association
• Digitizing forage seed
marketing

7. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net
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