Presented by Kindu Mekonnen (ILRI) at the Africa RISING Ethiopia review and planning meeting, Addis Ababa, 1 October – 1 November 2013

1. Progress of Africa RISING Project of the Ethiopian Highlands
Kindu Mekonnen, ILRI
2013–2014 Review and Planning Meeting, Addis Ababa
31 October – 1 November 2013

2. Africa RISING in Ethiopian highlands
 Aims at improving food security and farm
income diversification through sustainable
intensification of crop-livestock systems
 Operates in 4 regions
Region
Amhara
Woreda
Basona Worena
Kebeles
Goshe Bado and Gudo Beret
Oromia
SNNPR
Tigray
Sinana
Lemo
Endamekoni
Salka and Ilu-Sanbitu
Jawe and Upper-Gana
Emba-Hazti and Tsibet

3. Completed and on-going AR Project Activities
a) Diagnostic activities
Telephone survey
 Conducted in the 4 AR sites with researchers, extension staff
members and University instructors to generate very quick
information on farming systems, agricultural production
constraints and opportunities, income sources, market access
and technological needs.

4. Livelihood survey using SLATE
 Identify farm typologies for targeting interventions
 Training on SLATE - 28 resource persons
 Used 75 sample households (15 hhs for identification of livelihood
indicators and 60 for the hhs survey)
 Collected data for the 480 hhs in the 8 kebeles

5. Participatory Community Analysis (PCA)
 Generate information on livelihood, CBOs, farmer profiles/typologies,
local farming systems, prioritization of food and cash crops/livestock
enterprises, and water harvesting related activities
 More than 300 farmers participated across the eight kebeles
Studies on legume crop residues
 ICARDA conducted legume crop residue surveys in DB and Sinana

6. IMPACTlite survey
• Conducted to collect detail baseline information (farm resources,
farm management strategies, farm productivity, etc) on 72 farm hhs
that are involved in the on-farm research demos.
Agro-ecological knowledge, community knowledge groups
 ICRAF in collaboration with AR local partners in the 4 sites conducted
surveys to identify local agro-ecological knowledge and community
knowledge exchange groups

7. Market/ Value chain studies
 Value chain mapping for six enterprises (3 crop and 3 livestock)
 Propose interventions and prepare protocols for detail value chain
analysis

8. b) On-farm research
On-farm research demonstrations
 Developed protocols for crops intervention (wheat, faba bean and
potato).
 Forage (oat, vetch and tree lucern) and water harvesting and irrigation
 Conducted felddays at vegetative and harvesting stages
Crop and soil based fertilizer trials
 Established soil fertility trials in the 4 AR sites to come up with soil and
crop specific fertilizer recommendations

9. c) Partnership
CGIAR partners:
ILRI, CIP, IWMI, CIAT, ICRAF, ICARDA , IFPRI,
Bioversity, CIMMYT

10. Local partners:
Universities and collages- Wachemo, Mekele, Medawolabu, Debre Birhan,
Hawassa, Maichew Agricultural College
Regional Research Org- ARARI (DB), SARI (Areka &Werabe), TARI
(Alamata), OARI (Sinana)
Federal Research Org- EIAR, EHNRI
Office of Agriculture- Endamekoni (Tigray), Basona Worena (Amhara),
Lemo (SNNRP) and Sinana (Oromia)
Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)
Private Investors on Agriculture- DB highland fruit farm

11. d) Other activities
• Organized workshops and trainings (Ethiopia project planning
meeting, learning event, training on various tools and approaches)
• Recruitment and placement of 4 site coordinators
• Processing MOU between ILRI and Universities, Research Institutions
and Agri Offices
• Processing the purchase of vehicles for each of the AR sites