Farmers Training Center (FTC)-based farmer training is an emerging extension strategy geared towards human capital development through need-based, hands-on practical training in order to facilitate agricultural transformation and rural livelihood improvement. Although FTCs were established and made functional in the Tigray National Regional State and Alamata Woreda no systematic assessment of the relevance and effectiveness of the training were made.

Market opportunities are increasing at a rapid pace for livestock products, fuelled by rising incomes, globalisation and urbanisation, particularly in the developing world. At the same time, these opportunities bring increased complexity in the supply channels that market, distribute, organise and govern high-value products. This begs the questions on the ability of smallholder producers to contribute to this complex process.

Ethiopia has a diverse agro-ecology and sufficient surface and ground water resources, suitable for growing various temperate and tropical fruits. Although various tropical and temperate fruits are grown in the lowland/midland and highland agro-ecologies, the area coverage is very limited. For example, banana export increased from less than 5,000 tons in 1961 to 60,000 tons in 1972, but in 2003 declined to about 1,300 tons worth less than USD 350,000.

With irrigated vegetables development, interventions on the uses of improved inputs such as water lifting devices; varieties; on-farm water, nutrient and pest management, and access to credit and market information were introduced in Atsbi-Womberta district, Ethiopia. Besides, skill and uptake capacity of vegetable growers, extension service providers and vegetable traders were improved accordingly.

This paper shared lessons learnt from the project of Improving Productivity and Market Success in forage development approaches, scaling up strategies, opportunities and challenges in the process of farmer innovations and innovative interventions in the value-chain of market oriented livestock development in relation to sustainable use of natural resources in two districts in Ethiopia.

Graduate programs in agriculture and allied disciplines in Ethiopia are expected to make concrete contribution to market-oriented development of smallholder agriculture. This, among others, calls for realignment and engagement of the programs with smallholder farmers and, value chain, R&D and policy actors. No panacea exists, however, as to how to ensure effective linkages, and thereby responsiveness. Lessons from initiatives on the ground in the country and beyond is thus crucial to inform the development of appropriate policy and innovative strategy.

The following contents were included in this newsletter (April–June 2014): the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) held a two-day workshop on Engagement of Youth Entrepreneurship for Agricultural Transformation in Africa, from 28-30 May at IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria; cassava processing factory was established at the IITA Kalambo station in DR. Congo; project coordinator visits sites to evaluate project activities in Tanzania; stories on cassava, rice, wheat and maize were detailed. 

This summary is a condensed version of the June 2011 Agriculture and Climate Change: A Scoping Report developed by a team of expert authors, in consultation with UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiators and other key stakeholders, and facilitated by Meridian Institute. The aim of that report was to provide independent, objective analysis on many complex issues related to agriculture and climate change. This summary provides key points for policymakers, focusing on the unique aspects of agriculture when considered in the context of climate change.

Africa RISING (AR) is a research-for-development program that aims to create opportunities for smallholder farmers to move out of hunger and poverty through sustainable intensification of their farming systems.

This paper looks at brokerage functions in a project on building innovation capacity through improved networking. Innovation capacity influences how actors respond to changes in their environments. In such dynamic environments well connected sets of actors are at an advantage in that they can combine skills to address the emerging opportunities and challenges. However, policy and cultural barriers especially in African innovation systems raise the transaction costs of networking leading to weak connectivity among actors thus poor innovation capacity.