This document summarizes a public-private partnership in southeastern Ethiopia for disseminating legume technologies and developing business opportunities. The partnership involves Balegreen spice and grain development, which pioneered mechanized chickpea farming, knowledge transfer to surrounding smallholder farmers, and an outgrower program. Through this outgrower model, Balegreen strengthened the seed system, provided last mile delivery of inoculants, and facilitated grain bulking and delivery to markets. The partnership improved coordination between actors like ILRI, Balegreen, seed companies, and research institutions. It enhanced farmers' skills and disseminated chickpea technologies to over 28,000 farmers while improving input supply and market access. The model

1. N2Africa - Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
ILRI-N2Africa
Box 5689 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ● +251 11617 2200/25/33/35
ilri.org ● n2africa.org ● n2africa-Ethiopia.wikispaces.com
N2Africa project is funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Acknowledgements
Public-private partnerships for sustainable
legume technology dissemination and business:
The case of Balegreen in southeastern Ethiopia
Tamiru Amanu1, Edward Baars2, Endalkachew Wolde-meskel1, Birhan Abdulkadir1,
Theresa Ampadu-Boakye4, Ken Giller3, Fred Kanampiu4
1International Livestock Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Abuja, Nigeria,
3Plant Production Systems, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, 4International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nairobi, Kenya
Introduction
 General characteristics of legume value chains (including chickpea)
• Weak coordination and hence information asymmetry
• Poor performance
 A multi-stakeholder public-private partnerships have been designed and
functionalized
• Enhance technology dissemination and scale up
• Ensure sustainable knowledge transfer
• Realize efficient input supply and access to grain markets
The southeast Ethiopia public-private partnership
Way forward
 Appropriate progress tracking and feedback mechanism (M&E)
 Strengthen input demand information to enable suppliers informed and
effectuate the supply timely
 Strengthen the capacity of the nucleus farm to accommodate the growing
interest of non-contracted farmers and growing export market
 The nucleus farm, Balegreen spice and grain development, pioneered:
• Mechanizing chickpea farming and breaking a long cereal mono-cropping
• Knowledge transfer to surrounding farmers
• Engaged in out-grower farming arrangement with smallholder
farmers to grow Kabuli Chickpea
• Stimulated legume technology scale up through:
o Strengthened seed system development
o Serve as last mile delivery for inoculants from MBI
o Grain bulking and delivery to ACOS for the Monino Kabuli variety
 Joint planning improved coordination and execution of implementations
 A synergized effort of the cluster partners through the out-grower
model
• Enhanced farmers’ technical capacity, learning and chickpea
technology dissemination
• Improved information flow and farmers’ market orientation
o Interests of the actors well informed
o Triggered the business relationships between the actors
o Better coordination of input and grain marketing between the
main actors
• Growing interest from farmers to be involved in the out grower
scheme (28,000)
Outcomes and lessons from the partnership
 Cluster partners including ILRI, Balegreen, MBI, OARI-SARC. zonal and woreda BoA
and ACOS Ethiopia
 BMGF, WU and IITA
Role mapping and overview of the southeast public-private partnership cluster
Chickpea technology dissemination activities at our-grower farmers’ plots at Ginnir Woreda, Bale,
southeast Ethiopia
Grain value addition processes (cleaning, sorting, and bagging) at ACOS Ethiopia factory for export
market
The Balegreen out-grower farming model
Mechanized chickpea seed multiplication at Balegreen Farm in Ginnir Woreda, Bale, South East
Ethiopia
This poster is copyrighted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). It is licensed for use under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. March 2016